Reverse Advent Calendar

 Wow I haven't written in a long time again.  I just wanted to quickly share something I'm looking forward to. 

I love Advent and Christmastime.  I am thinking about it as soon as the school year starts back up and how to make it meaningful for my family. 

One little tradition we've been doing for several years now is a Reverse Advent Calendar.

We are all familiar with the chocolate Advent calendars where each day you open a door and GET a little chocolate.  Well, a reverse Advent calendar does the opposite. Each day you GIVE something.  In this case non perishable food!  It's very simple and here's all you need to do. 

1. Choose a local food pantry or county food share you'd like to support. Our church runs a large food pantry so we donate there. 
2. Find out what the most needed items are at the food pantry.
3. Print out a blank December calendar (lots of free options online).  
4. On each day write which item will get donated (or placed in the donation bag). 
5. If you have multiple kids and they'd be likely to fight over whose turn it is, write first initials on each day to rotate through. You can let kids mark off their day once complete. 
6. Then, start collecting a few extra food items to stock your pantry with.  I have a designated shelf where I collect these items and each day the designated kid goes and finds this item to add to the bag.
7. LASTLY, donate the items!  We do this each Sunday at church but you could save it all to donate at once or however works best. 

Last year's calendar. Teens and younger kids alike are asked to participate. 

Last month I had our new December calendar printed out and updated with the current most-needed items at our food pantry of choice.  We do have a variety of conversations about food scarcity, leveraging our resources and giftings to benefit others, the importance of helping other people even if we don't know them, and being grateful for what we have.  It's a small and simple thing but for a split second it pulls us all to think of others and not just ourselves.  Overindulgence is at a high during the holidays so any way to 'reverse' that is a worthy endeavor in my opinion. 

Happy Advent!