How to Start a Blessing Jar Tradition

See a penny pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.

Or perhaps the copper coin can instead bless another as you drop it into your family Blessing Jar.

For years, I wanted to start a Christmas Jar in our family. I loved the idea, wanted to do the tradition, but I constantly forgot to start it…. until last year. And now this particular tradition is one of our family favorites.

We renamed it our family Blessing Jar and use it a little differently than is expressed in the Christmas Jar book, but the overall purpose is the same- to take the time to think of giving to others throughout the entire year.

How to Start your Blessing Jar Tradition

While raising my five children, I seek out ways to naturally teach my sons and daughter how to think of others before themselves and regularly be a blessing to other people in simple and significant ways. The Blessing Jar is a perfect way to authentically teach the values I want my kids to have as well as build an overall giving family culture.

What You Need to Begin Your Blessing Jar Tradition

Grab a random empty glass jar and set it in a prominent area of your home where your family members frequently reside. Designate the jar as your 2019 family Blessing Jar and begin dropping coins and bills into the glass jar all year long.

Fill the jar with unexpected money you find or receive throughout the entire year.

We fill our Blessing Jar with coins that we find laying on the ground in parking lots; bills that were accidentally left in pockets and appear in the dryer; unclaimed piles of coins left around the house and money received for helping people who wouldn’t accept our help for free.

This year’s jar reminded me of precious moments like the time when we were vacationing in California, and two of our sons pushed a dead golf cart up a steep hill to get it home for a group of stranded girls. The boys tried to refuse the cash the girls insisted they take for helping them. So, they gave it to me and asked me to put it in our Blessing Jar.

Without this intentional tradition in place, I guarantee that money would’ve just gone right into their pockets because there would’ve been nowhere else for it to go. We must intentionally give our children opportunities to bless others before themselves and the Blessing Jar does precisely that.

At the beginning of the year, my husband came home from the gym and dropped this crumpled one dollar bill into our jar. He said no one was around to claim it, so he picked it up to add to our Blessing Jar. If we didn’t have this tradition, I guarantee he wouldn’t have cared even to grab that money. I most certainly would’ve never heard about it even if he had.

Make One Purposeful Choice

Each year, I purposely don’t purchase or do something I would usually do in December and instead gift that money to the jar instead. For instance, this year is the first time I didn’t send out a photo Christmas card of our family and instead put that money I would’ve spent in our Blessing Jar.

The Blessing Jar is a simple family tradition that gives us an avenue to authentically talk with our children about our spending choices and our giving. It’s so much fun to watch the jar organically fill up throughout the year and even more meaningful to gather together as a family the week before Christmas and decide who we want to receive our Blessing Jar.

4 Ways to Create Meaning in A Glass Jar!

A Blessing Jar is an intentional way for your family to have a small, collective purpose throughout the entire year.

It’s simple traditions like this that teach our children the values we want them to leave our home with one day. If you’re looking to begin a meaningful family tradition that will last all year long, consider starting a Blessing Jar of your own come January 1!