Light the World

Light the World is becoming one of my favorite Christmas traditions. I love being more intentional in our efforts to serve others during the Christmas season, especially when we can do it as a family. We tried to involve everyone as much as we could. Here are a few of the things we did. The kids really didn't like making visits to the elderly when we first started, but they actually look forward to it now. Usually they end up with some kind of treat at the end of the night, but they are much more comfortable around the older people and have become more patient too. But more importantly, the people LOVE it when we come which is why we keep doing it.

One night we visited an elderly man that has no family.  Kenney said his apartment had no decorations and that he didn't do anything for Thanksgiving.  We thought it would be nice if we brought him a tree and the kids helped him decorate it.  He LOVED having us there.  The kids had a great time too.  He found a box of candy canes and gave each of the kids one (they always seem to get something out of these kinds of visits).  We had a neighbor kid, Raylynn with us too, so she came along.  Mr. Blevins was such a happy guy for being so lonely and couldn't wait for us to come visit again.  He even asked Kenney for a copy of this picture to hang in his house!

We picked up some Angels from the bank to help some local families buy gifts for their kids.  We found a little boy that loved Spiderman, and they all helped me find some gifts.

The kids all helped to remove some branches at the rent house.  They didn't want to do it, but they did and seemed to have a pretty good time doing it.

We also made cookies for visits that we made, class parties, and Santa.  This is what happens when I'm busy making cookies and Mackenzie roams free!  Disasters everywhere!! 

Our neighbor Raylynn was over helping decorate cookies too.

She was pretty content just walking around.

Proud of his snowman

Another disaster while we decorated the cookies.

Not my favorite Christmas tradition.

There were sprinkles EVERYWHERE!!!

Santa had some amazing cookies waiting for him!!  I told all the people we delivered cookies to to not eat the sugar cookies, haha!!