Discuss with your children the importance of helping out in the community, and then decide where you would like to volunteer.  You could volunteer at the food pantry, animal shelter or soup kitchen. You could make and take baskets to needy families or shut-ins.  Another idea is to get involved in a service project such as Habitat for Humanity, Big Brothers/Big Sisters or the Salvation Army.

Do a craft activity at home.  Plan on making items that can be used as gifts for family members.  Take brown paper bags and turn them into gift-wrap by stamping a design on the paper.  Make greeting cards or gift tags.  All these can be simple projects and easily done.

A tradition our family always enjoys is making candy together.  We often get together with my sisters and their families to make a variety of holiday candy for the children to use as gifts.  We make several large batches of chocolates, toffee, fudge and peanut butter bars.  Cooking is great practice for reinforcing reading skills, math skills, cooperation and organizational skills.

We have tins and boxes all ready so the candy can be divided up and used as gifts.  I put ours right in the freezer after they are well wrapped, and they stay nice and fresh until we are ready to use them.

These kinds of special times and traditions are what children will remember when they grow up.  It is the little things we do that often leave lasting impressions and lifelong memories.  We make these peanut butter bars often throughout the year.  It is a great treat to make with children as it is a simple and easy to do recipe with great results.  I have included it below. 

When we are all done, we can sit back and look at all we accomplished and talk about how much fun we all had together working on this project.