This Christmas season think: little.

If this Christmas season is overwhelming to you. Think little.

Here's what I mean:
This past year I read this article that highlights the #1 reason kids in America are failing to learn to read: most middle-income homes have 10 or fewer books on the bookshelf for their children.

Low-income families are lucky to have one book per child in their home.
There simply aren't books around calling to and inspiring their children to open the pages and learn to read them.
Children Reading Clip Art
We have the opposite problem at our house. We have more bookshelves than beds. Reading means so much to us and our children. That article cried out to me and I determined that I could do something to change that statistic. Even just a little.

Probably 75% of the books that we own I picked up second hand. I pick them up-often nearly new-from library book sales, thrift stores, yard sales, etc. We LOVE to have books to pique curiosity at our house but my husband has been a student for the past 4 years and that is what we can afford.

Because it has been such a HUGE blessing to have these little books we decided to collect children's books to give to other families.

So for the past six months our stack of books to donate has grown and been donated and grown again. There is a local community clinic where we live that also houses WIC and we leave them on their donation table for the little people that come in.

This is just a simple little project:
Little books from the hands of my little kids to the hands of other little kids.

We happened to be at our local Re-Store yesterday and found that they have a children's book section. A dime a book. We went through them all, picked out the best and our favorites, and my little kids are so excited to take these little books and go leave them for other little kids at the clinic today-just in time for Christmas!

Lots of other people do amazing things.

This is something little. I am sharing this simply because it's little.

If this Christmas season is overwhelming to you. Think little.
Thought Cloud Clip Art

Do a little project for someone else.
It will make your Christmas one you'll never forget.

Christ gave us such a BIG gift. Little by little we can each pass that on.

2 comments:

Salon Fan said...

I think that every Christmas season is overwhelming to me. Thinking small helps, thanks!

~Garret
Hello Kitty Apparel
Manager

Robbie said...

What a wonderful idea. We have taken our old books to St Vincent de Paul (which is doing small shoeboxes for Christmas for their clients). It's a very simple way to help a family out. I can't imagine not curling in bed with my kids and a story book!

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