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How do you explain what Black Friday is to a kid? You can’t miss the steady flow of commercials, mailings and signage everywhere, so what’s a parent to do? Here’s my solution to help make “Black Friday with a Heart of Gold!” a tradition worth keeping for you and your family!
“Mommy, what’s Black Friday?” The question came up last year after only a few minutes of watching television. As Thanksgiving approaches, it is impossible to miss the commercials, mailings and signage everywhere. After attempting to give her a brief, age appropriate answer, she made her mind up that it was something she wanted to participate in. (Not my intention.) Fortunately, I came up with a way to have fun on Black Friday while keeping a positive lesson in sight the whole time.
The plan:
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One store (our local Target)
**UPDATE: A few local small businesses are joining in on the fun too! Read more HERE.** -
One hundred dollar limit
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One mission: to shop only for gifts to DONATE.
I couldn’t have been prouder! She filled up the cart, keeping tally on a calculator as she went along. She even “splurged” on a big ticket item for $35. She said that some child would LOVE to open it on Christmas morning so we *had* to put it into the cart. Overall, I think she did a great job with her selections. She definitely placed well beyond a hundred dollars worth of smiles into our cart, not even once asking for something for herself.
As a bonus- My dad was so inspired by his granddaughter that he too wanted to fill a cart of goodies to donate! We tagged along with him last year as he went on his mission to Toys R Us, deciding to fill his cart only with Thor and Captain America toys.
It was the perfect transition from celebrating the abundance of blessings on Thanksgiving Day while combating the competitive nature of the Black Friday craze. It was only about 30 seconds into our donation run that I knew this was going to be a long lasting tradition in our family.
This year, though, things are tight and as the day approaches, I’ve been wondering how we would be able to manage. But we will. Attempting to make it into a mini math lesson, I asked my daughter how many people we would need to donate $10 each in order to reach our $100 donation run goal? Ten. That’s all we need.
SO… can YOU be one of our TEN Hearts of Gold Supporters??? Use the DONATION button at the bottom of the page.
Interested in doing your own Black Friday With a Heart of Gold event? Make sure to tag it with #BlackFridayHOG so we can share what you are doing to help make a difference!
The location, once again, that we selected to donate to for our Second Annual Black Friday Donation Run: Westchester Christmas Dinner
(This post was NOT sponsored by Target, nor Toys R Us.)
