1. Buy a game for a family on Amazon and ship right to their door.
2. Add flowers to your grocery pick up and arrange them at home and drop them on a friend’s porch.
3. Order eggs and candy on-line and go put a surprise Easter egg hunt in a friend’s yard.
4. Send a meal to someone’s door! Most restaurants are selling family style meals now and everyone is delivering!
5. Order bubbles, crafts, chalk, water balloons, silly string, or jump ropes and make an outdoor activity basket to get some kids out of the house. Bubble bath is a great idea to throw in for indoor fun. Babyganics has clean and free bubble baths.
6. Joy Ride! This idea is my husband’s and we’ve been doing it the past few days. Make a jar of mom and dad slips of paper and a jar with every kid’s name on paper in a second jar. We put each kid’s name in twice. Each day, draw one parent and one child to go have a one-on-one joy ride. We let them each pick either a meal or dessert and we go find a place to picnic together. This picture is me and one of my daughters earlier today.
7. If you are up to go out in a safer way, go to Walmart’s garden center and pick up some flowers to plant, a bag of soil and planter or a flower basket. You can stay outside, pay outside, and not be in Walmart crazy. Leave them for a friend outside who loves to plant or make them a planter to gift.
8. Make and deliver a treat, or even better, a homemade birthday cake to all of those kiddos missing their planned birthday parties.
9. Drop off a Starbucks or a dozen donuts to someone who needs a little surprise.
10. Mail some happy mail to the elderly at nursing homes or to grandparents missing their grands.
11. Chalk a house! I did this in middle school with friends and we called it chalking. Go with chalk and decorate and leave encouraging messages on someone’s driveway.
12. Decorate a friend’s porch! Get balloons (not helium, just tape blow-ups ones) and streamers and a poster and tell them you love them and miss them. Adding in candy never hurt anybody. 😁
13. Here is a spin on the egg hunt…order the tiny glow sticks (1.5 inch) that fit in your mouth and candy and add them both to Easter Eggs to give a NIGHT egg hunt. It looks really cool and most people have never seen or done a glow hunt. You can get all of this on Amazon per usual life. 🙂 Light colored plastic eggs will glow the brightest! Everydaysavvy.com has these details PLUS a link on Amazon for the tiny glow sticks.
14. Serve somebody else! Show up and mow someone’s yard, pull their weeds, string some porch lights, plant flowers, walk a dog for someone who is home bound or elderly, or anything else you can think of. This is great for anyone, but especially for those among us who can’t do those things easily for themselves. This also is for anyone you can bless who hates yard work!
15. Have a meal kit delivered to someone’s house to have something different for dinner and as an activity a family can do together.
16. Adopt a student. We have a university in my hometown and they are offering an adopt-a-student option as a way to help some students that are quarantined on campus. I’m guessing that they are all international students who can’t return home during this time. Sending a student some cheer and essentials that are so far from home. Check the embeded link above to adopt a student. See if your hometown college has a program like this or maybe even start one up if not. I can’t imagine being a world away from friends and family during this time.
17. Make an outdoor/indoor scavenger hunt to leave in someone’s mailbox for their children. If you have a printer at home, just look for some on Pinterest and print them off at home and deliver with some bags so that the kids can collect their goodies.
18. Send an Amazon, Target, or any kind of gift card to a place still shipping to a friend who is slowly losing it inside. 😂
19. My favorite thing of all and I can’t claim as an idea. Create a sitting space in the tailgate of your van or truck. Go to an empty parking lot, park in a circle spaced out 10 feet or so from each other, and see your friend’s faces while you talk! If you don’t have a tailgate, put a blanket on the ground by the trunk of your car. These moms below ditched their kids and drank coffee and talked car to car. DREAM!
20. Use your gifts to bless someone else! If you knit, make someone a blanket. If you are handy, fix something for someone outside of their home or change their oil. If you are financially blessed, order groceries for someone or deliver essentials to shut-ins or less fortunate families. If you bake, deliver food. If you are a photographer, take pics from a good distance outdoors of friends. I have a friend who just offered this to me! If there is anyway you can safely use a gift or skill to encourage someone else, we should always use these things for others at all times, but especially now!
21. Paint rocks with your kids and hide them around your neighborhood along paths that families are walking regularly.
22. Tell your friends not to come outside or look outside for 15 minutes when you arrive at their house and set up fun disposable tablecloths, plates, cups, and silverware as a surprise picnic/dinner set-up. Tell them to go check their back porch when you leave and put a note on the table telling them that they hoped this would brighten up their day and lunch/dinner!
One day at a crazy stuck at home time, people! Make someone else’s day a little less quaratine-y! Pin, share, enjoy
