Possibly Inspired

Inspired to pretend that vodka and tequila are prettier drinks than they really are?  Maybe.  But in all actuality, I'm potentially inspired to spread some holiday cheer in a more random way this year.  That may have been the most fluffy way I could have said that.  Let me clarify.

For every year of my life, my cousins and I have traded names and exchanged gifts.  Each year you were responsible to give one cousin a Christmas present and when I was younger, this was all fairly easy to do as we all were usually together for Christmas.  Fast forward 20 years and our group of cousins has grown by a significant number of cousins, cousins-in-law (if that's a term) and babies of cousins (2nd cousins?).  We've also branched out across the country.  Basically this means that trying to get the name exchange done, gifts purchased,and sent out was a bit of a process.  Some cousins were very good about doing this, others were not.  Which means some people didn't get presents and I  those people felt sucky.

This year, there is talk about changing how we celebrate Christmas and each other.  Some people want to send gifts, some people don't.  When the conversation came through my inbox this morning, I started thinking about what made sense.  What could we do that would be fun, would celebrate the holiday, and would still treat someone to something special?  I came up with the idea of performing random acts of kindness.

I suggested that we all take the $20 dollars (or more if possible) that we would have spent on a gift and instead found a way to perform a random act of kindness.  I'm not sure exactly what that could be but the ideas that have crossed my mind were donating needed items to an animal shelter, buying McDonalds gift certificates to hand out to strangers (in memory of trips with my grandpa to MickeyD's for happy meals), paying patron's library fines, handing out tacos to strangers on the street...I don't know...something...

I'm hoping my cousins are as excited about this idea as I am and being as I also suggested we document these random acts of kindness, I'm hoping I can show them on here! To be honest, I think I might just do it whether anyone will join me or not.  If you, o' readers I may or may not have, want to join me, feel free to email me a picture of your random act of kindness and I'll post it on Reckless Reading!