Stories of Kindness from Around the World

You Can Do It, Sam!


--by laurina, posted Dec 5, 2008
My youngest son and I bought a children's book titled You Can Do It, Sam by Amy Hest. In the story a small bear and his mother bake cakes and then deliver them to their neighbors. They baked 12 cakes, but saved the last 2 to eat themselves when they got home.

After reading this book at least once a day for a couple of weeks to my 7-year old son, he  told me that he wanted to do the same thing for Christmas Eve.  He even picked out a special baking tin in the store that he asked me to buy. It had room to bake 6 individual heart-shaped cakes.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, I mixed up the chocolate cake batter, with help from my son. We ended up baking 18 small heart cakes. We frosted each cake, before we put it into a sandwich-sized ziploc. We added a sticker and a little gift tag that said "from your neighbors".

We walked around the neighborhood handing these cakes out. Two of them went to neighbors we'd never spoken to before. What fun to meet someone new. A neighbor girl went with us to met those neighbors, since she knew both of them.

Then she walked with us to deliver a cake to a neighbor she'd never met before.  And one neighbor recognized my son as "You're the little boy who tucked a card in my mailbox at Halloween".

My favorite recipient was our mailman. I was standing in the yard, cake in hand, getting ready to walk with my son, when I saw the mailman pull up. What perfect timing! I ran straight over to him and presented the cake to him with a "Merry Christmas!" He smiled so much at the gift of that cake!

What a fun idea my young son had!
2460 Reads

Readers Comments

hotcocoa wrote: Aww! That's really nice!
makesomeonesmile wrote: That is great! Thanks for teaching your son such great lessons that will make him a kinder addition to the world! Thanks for sharing!
JuneBug wrote: That's sooo cute! And hearts...WOW! Your son sure has a big one himself!
myfbil wrote: What a wonderful lesson you taught each other! HE taught you put into practice what we learn from books by suggesting that you do this for your neighbors. YOU taught him that you listen to him and appreciate his kind heart. What a wonderful, simple way to share the joy of Christmas. Thank you for sharing this story!
southerncross wrote: I think your son has a big heart because his mom helped him to have a big heart. We teach our children what we are taught, thank our dear Lord God that we have great hearts and were given great hearts to share. Good teaching mom and you have a wonderful young man. He will grow up to a great dad one day, just as my son will. Thanks for the story. May God bless you and your family, and give you a happy new year and many to come.
AURELIA wrote: Isn't it fun to do things with your children? The nice thing is ... it's a gift he'll remember forever. You gave him your time and had such a good time with him baking, decorating and then delivering the cakes! I used to bake cookies and decorate them with my mom. It was tradition for her to still come to my house when I was grown and bake christmas cookies with my kids. She's gone now, but they/we still have wonderful memories. Good for you for building memories with your son. ~Aurelia
AURELIA wrote: Isn't it fun to do things with your children? The nice thing is ... it's a gift he'll remember forever. You gave him your time and had such a good time with him baking, decorating and then delivering the cakes! I used to bake cookies and decorate them with my mom. It was tradition for her to still come to my house when I was grown and bake christmas cookies with my kids. She's gone now, but they/we still have wonderful memories. Good for you for building memories with your son. ~Aurelia
AURELIA wrote: Isn't it fun to do things with your children? The nice thing is ... it's a gift he'll remember forever. You gave him your time and had such a good time with him baking, decorating and then delivering the cakes! I used to bake cookies and decorate them with my mom. It was tradition for her to still come to my house when I was grown and bake christmas cookies with my kids. She's gone now, but they/we still have wonderful memories. Good for you for building memories with your son. ~Aurelia
Alraisi wrote: That is something more than Fun and I like it very much. You know children are Angels and the thing I like the most in them is that they use their imagination more and more all the time and keep trying to create things from their own. Thank You for Sharing...!!! Keep It Up...!!!
Alraisi...
lmil1954 wrote: Thanks for sharing this story, you have been blessed to be a blessing! God is SO good, and so are you and your son. Happy 2008! LindaM

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