Kindness Tree, Good deeds Tree, Goodwill Tree, Service Tree whatever you want to call it (we don’t actually have a name for it!) this is a tradition that we started in our family that has really brought the spirit of Christmas into our home.

The idea came from the first day of my advent calendar I once had: “Gather 24 ornaments for your Christmas tree and place them in a basket under the tree. Each time you complete an act of service, put an ornament on the tree.”

I took a spare little tree we had, and the spare decorations we weren’t using on the main tree and placed them in our family room. Whenever we noticed someone doing something nice for someone else, we would say “go and put an ornament on the tree!” The kids love it, and I love catching the kids being good!

Just this morning, my 7 year old was feeling sad about something, so my almost 3 year old came over to her and rubbed her back and mumbled something in toddler-speak, it sounded something like “oh, are you ok?”. So we told her she could go and put an ornament on the tree (Which is great, because she has a real fetish with ornaments! 2 years ago she crawled and pulled off all the ornaments off the bottom of the tree. Last year she took bite marks out of the styrofoam ones. This year, she picks them off the tree like apples and carries them in her wicker basket!)

So if you are upgrading your tree and decorations, this could be a wonderful way to make use of those items! You could even make and advent tree with numbered ornaments or a Gratitude tree where you would say what you were grateful for, then put an ornament up. The possibilities are endless!