Are you seeing heralds of the season of giving? From bell ringers braving the elements outside stores to children poring over pictures of toys, the holiday envelops us in good will. What better time to put a little RAK into action? Your tiny world will glimmer just a little brighter.
Random acts of kindness afford us many opportunities to give and feel good in the process. Here is a list of ideas to get you thinking. It includes work-related RAKs as well as spontaneous gestures, all small things that cost us nothing. Nothing at all.
Let’s begin with the workplace. Go the extra mile in just one thing—ask for the manager’s name. Our client needs that information to contact and improve product management. It’s faster and easier to just get the inventory and do the job without tracking down an elusive manager, but it’s a kindness to do so.
Find one thing to do for strangers every day. Hold a door. Let a car in merging traffic into your lane ahead of you. Smile at a stranger on the sidewalk. The possibilities are truly endless and ridiculously simple. They cost you nothing, but the good will you generate is priceless.
Pick up the phone and call someone whom you seldom bother to contact. It may be a grandparent or a shut-in. I know. Old people will talk your socks off. You can plan an exit strategy ahead of time because it doesn’t have to be a looooong conversation. A short call elicits the same smile as a long one. Just call
Be generous with your gratitude. Family member and roommates often bear the brunt of our disappointments. Just for a change of page, share a few heartfelt words of appreciation. Notice the efforts of someone to look better, behave better, or to go the extra mile for you.
In the spirit of giving, here’s a few of our favorite cookie recipes. They never fail to please. 
At our house cookie day begins in a kitchen equipped with three ovens, a giant Hobart mixer, and a long working island. We reserve a local church for the invasion of 17 people as the whole family gathers to make 14-20 batches of cookies. The kiddos mix and form, and then play hide & seek while the cookies bake. Then the frosting and decorating of more than a hundred sugar cookies begins. It’s a long-standing family tradition and even the teens refuse to miss it.
Whatever your traditions, embrace them. Give a little and then a little bit more of yourself. A simple act of giving yields two smiles—yours and the smile of the person you bless with a random act of kindness.
