Kindness Elves Ideas & Free Printables

There are so many great ideas online for the Kindness Elves Tradition. There is no right or wrong with this tradition. It can be as simple as a smile, or something bigger such as sponsoring a child. There are truly hundreds of things your Kindness Elves can suggest. Below you will find a few of our favorites. Do what works for your family and make wonderful lasting memories this holiday.

• Feed the birds.

It's harder for birds to find food in the winter, so why not make some easy DIY feeders! Growing a Jeweled Rose has some great DIY bird feeder ideas for kids.

• Create a Blessings Bag and give it to someone in need.

Thrifty North West Mom has a lovely post on setting up Blessing Bags to give out to those in need. 

Painting Word Rocks to place around our town.

• Paint Word Rocks and place around your neighborhood. 

Originally started as a simple and sweet project by a mother and her son in San Diego, California, #wordrocks have spread across the globe. You can read more about it here on Dabbles & Babbles blog. 

•  Write letters or make cards for children in the hospital.

Cards for Hospitalized Kids is a great organisation that help distribute cards and notes written to sick children. They have all the instructions you need on their website.

• Make Lolli-Flowers and give them to people who need cheering up.

Lara from Kind Over Matter has a lovely tutorial and free printable for making Lolli-flowers. Such a cute idea to do with little ones. 

• Write a note or thank you card to a soldier who is away from their family this holiday season.

America's Adopt a Soldier program and A Million Thanks have great info on writing to our troops and addresses for where to send your cards and letters.

• Donate books to your local library or charity. 

Books for Africa is a great organisation that you can send your books to and they deliver them to children in Africa. They have shipped over 36 million books to 49 different countries since 1988. Check out their website for info on sending books and to read up on  their great organisation.

•  Color a cheerful picture and send it in to Color a Smile.

Color A Smile is a nonprofit organization that distributes cheerful drawings to senior citizens, our troops overseas, and anyone in need of a smile. Every month they mail thousands of new drawings to all the people on their mailing list.

 They have free printable coloring pages you can print out, color and send in. 

This is a brief outline on the Kindness Elf tradition.

• They typically arrive in your home around the holidays and are sent to share some love and magic.
• They will only share kind ideas and noticing things that are lovely. There's no focus on negativity, but there can still be lots of fun and silliness too!
• They normally are moved somewhere different each morning, sometimes in funny situations and positions, often next to an item that is need for that day’s kindness activity e.g. inside a mixing bowl ready to bake some cookies as a gift
• Many times they will be holding little suggestions for acts of kindness, love or helpfulness that your children can do together that day for e.g. “Let’s collect some of your toys and give them away to the children’s hospital”, “let’s make some cookies for the neighbors ”, “shall we visit an elderly friend/ relative?” etc
• When they see the children doing kind and lovely things, they will leave a little note for them to find in the morning e.g. “I loved it when I saw you reading your new book with your little sister” or “you were very kind to help your Mommy fold the laundry!”.
• Some mornings your little ones might wake up to find the elves have lined up their shoes, tidied their playroom, got the breakfast things ready or fixed a broken toy etc. Modelling direct ways to be kind and helpful as a prompt for the children in the day.

You can find more on this tradition in our last years blog post- Here

Free Kindness Elves Printables click HERE

 If you are looking for the perfect  Holiday Elf for your Kindness tradition, we carry our traditional red & green elves

as well as Scandinavian inspired,

Angels

and Gnome/Tomten looking ones too.

We also carry Santa Claus dolls,

Wooden Elf benches,

Ladders, Elf Doors and more.

All of our Elves are handmade in the USA by owner, Suzanne Barker