What is a Christmas Jar?
A Christmas jar is any empty jar (mason, pickle, spaghetti sauce, mayonnaise) you place in plain sight and fill with spare change throughout the course of a year. No checks, no bills, just copper and silver coins. Once the money is in the jar it cannot be removed! Sometime in the days leading up to Christmas or on Christmas Eve, you donate your jar to someone anonymously. It could be a coworker, a stranger, a family member or friend. There is no right or wrong person and no right or wrong way to donate it as long as it’s done anonymously.
People often ask me if they can fill the jar and give it back to me to donate. Yes....and no. Yes you can but I prefer you don’t! I’ve already experienced what it feels like to leave my jar on a doorstep and seen the look of disbelief and gratitude on the face and in the eyes of a stranger when I’ve handed them a full jar. This is what everyone who fills a jar needs to experience. There’s nothing like it. I guarantee once you do it you’ll be hooked forever!
Who should you donate your jar to?
It’s up to you. It doesn’t have to be the poorest of the poor, although it can be. It can be a neighbor who has been laid off from work, a friend who is having trouble paying their bills, a homeless man or woman, a family who isn’t sure how they are going to put presents under their tree this year. You judge the need and decide who the recipient will be.
How much money should be in the jar?
The amount of money in the jar (on average $125) is irrelevant. The jar will not solve all of their problems and it’s not intended to. What it is intended to do is offer a little bit of hope.
The Christmas Jar tradition is all about that one jar that you will fill, that one jar that you will donate, that one family whose lives will be changed because of your jar. Hopefully, they too will start to fill a jar and donate it the following Christmas and the magic of the Christmas Jar will continue.
Now back to the story of 1,001 jars........
