Christmas Cheer

It’s been a year or two since we make goodies for our neighbors and this year we decided to do it in the spirit of Christmas. I think Jesus would bring gifts to his neighbors. :) So we made goodie baskets for each one of our surrounding neighbors, even the not-so-nice ones. We made carmel pretzel twists, peppermint bark, rumballs and chocolate chip cookies and packaged them all up nicely. Then, as a family, we delivered each package to our neighbors. What an experience that was! I was struck by how much these people appreciated a visit from us. We don’t know any of our neighbors very well and we’ve lived here for 5 years! Part of that is because they are all older people, there are no young kids near us—and that is usually an easy way to befriend your neighbors. But part of it is just laziness and the natural impulse to just stick close to home. At each home we visited we spent time talking to our neighbors. They invited us in and gave us treats and shared a little of what is going on in their lives. Many of them invited us to come back again and visit with them, and one even came the next day with treats for us. And the not-so-nice neighbors. Guess what they did? They came over the next day and offered to watch our dogs for us while we were gone! I guess they just needed us to be nice first. After seeing how much joy we can bring to some of our elderly neighbors with just a simple visit, I plan to take the kids around to say hi more often. What an easy way to show people that we care about them.