Mailbox Messages

I love reading blogs that give me ideas of things to do with or for my kids. I think it's so wonderful when mama's share ideas with each other. This year, I'm going to start a new tradition for the holidays and I wanted to share them with you. 

I love the holidays and I feel, as a mother, it's my responsibility to make my children's childhood as special, wonderful, and memorable as possible. I've come up something called mailbox messages and we are going to start this year.

We have a mailbox for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we have our Thankful Thoughts mailbox. Starting on November 1st, Steven and I will write each of our kids a thankful note and put it in the mailbox. For example: I might write Brady a note that says, I'm thankful you're such a wonderful big brother to your brother and sisters. Each kid will get their own note from both Steven and myself, and we'll do this everyday in November until Thanksgiving morning. I'm going to keep up with all the notes, and make them into a book for each kid to keep. As the kids get older, they will start writing notes to each of their siblings. I think this is a great way to teach my kids to have thankful hearts. There are several variations you could use the Thankful Thoughts mailbox for, I plan on using it in my classroom someday when I go back to work.

Christmas

For Christmas we do Elf on the Shelf. We actually have two elves, Buddy and Ruby. Every night when our elves fly up to the North Pole to report to Santa about how the kids are acting, Santa will write them a letter, encouraging them to continue to have good behavior. Their notes from Santa will be in our Christmas mailbox that's called Merry Mail each morning. 

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, Steven and I will write Love Notes to the kids. We'll start on February 1st and go until Valentine's Day on the 14th. On Valentine's Day, I'll put each kids love notes together and make a little book for them to keep. As the kids get older, they'll start writing each sibling a love note every day letting them know one thing they love about them. 

I bought the mailboxes at Hobby Lobby. They are originally $7, but I waited until they were 50% off to buy them. I have a very talented friend who is very artistic, she did all the painting for me. I can only take credit for the idea, but not the creativity.