Angels Among Us: A Christmas Service Tradition

I know Thanksgiving hasn’t happened yet, and i usually have a hard and fast rule about Christmas before Thanksgiving, but just call me a rebel because I’m breaking it this year. There are two reasons: one, last year around this time I was sick and miserable and very, very pregnant. So I basically missed all the things I loved about Christmas – I didn’t play carols, watch White Christmas, nothing. So this year, I have to do more Christmas in order to make up for it, because that’s totally how this works.

The second reason is that some of the posts I wanted to do needed to be before December 1st. For instance, next week I’m coming at you with an advent calendar. You gotta have the printable before the season starts, so I’m going to honor that and get it out to you, even though Thanksgiving isn’t over and is totally a great holiday, and should NOT get forgotten between Halloween and Christmas.

Anyway, enough justification. Today’s post is called Angels Among Us, and it’s something I’m going to be trying with my own family this year. The idea is to get people to serve folks within their own homes. It’s inspired by this story from a talk by Linda K. Burton (she’s a leader in the LDS church).

“At the funeral services for a remarkable daughter of God, someone shared that this sister, as stake Relief Society president, worked with others in her stake to contribute quilts to give warmth to suffering people in Kosovo during the 1990s. And like the good Samaritan, she went out of her way to do more as she and her daughter drove a truck filled with those quilts from London to Kosovo. On her journey home she received an unmistakable spiritual impression that sank deep into her heart. The impression was this: ‘What you have done is a very good thing. Now go home, walk across the street, and serve your neighbor!'”

It’s a great talk and you can read the full text here. It was also a wake up call for me. Sometimes, especially around Christmas, I can get caught up in taking cookies to literally everyone and their mother, and forget to give the little acts of service to those nearest to me. That’s why I’m going to be doing Angels Among Us this year, and I invite you to join in.

How It Works

Print out and color the angel printable. You could even laminate her with contact paper to make her longer-lasting.
Introduce the angel by reading this story (It’s geared at little kids, so if you’re doing this with older ones, you may need to adapt).
Without being caught, do a secret act of service for someone in your family.
Leave the angel at the scene of the service. Make sure she’s visible.
Whoever received the service is now the angel. They need to do a secret act of service for someone in the family. (If it’s a very small person, they may need some help from the parents).
Repeat over and over, ideally for the whole month.

Ideas for Service

If you’re running low on ideas, here are some ways to show love to family members:

Make their bed
Clean up their mess
Wash the dishes
Fold the laundry
Make breakfast and leave it on the table (cereal totally counts!)
Make an origami heart
Draw a picture
Charge their phone
Put the dishes away
Make their favorite snack
Leave a nice (typed!) note on their bed
Get them a book they would like from the library
Do one of their chores
Put a note in their car/lunchbox/backpack/anywhere they will find it

So there you go. I hope this sounds like something you and your family would like to give a shot. If you have a great idea for some sneaky service, leave a comment below. I’ll be updating this next year, so I’d love to hear what you folks are up to. Happy serving!