Who Knew Spending $100 Would Be So Hard?

We try our best in our family to be kind to people throughout the year and make regular contributions to charities we believe in. If we have money or time to give, we usually have no problem figuring out how to use it. And we're a family that's all about the importance of everyday kindness -- saying 'please' and 'thank you' whenever the situation calls for it.

So I was surprised at myself when the Yahoo! How Good Grows/Ripple of Kindness program offered to provide $100 for us to give away over the holiday season. The directive? Use it to help spread small acts of kindness in the hope that a 'pay it forward' ripple effect would be created, spreading increasing small acts of kindness to see how far it could go.

Initially, I was at a loss with how to spread that holiday kindness. There are so many people deserving of a little something extra -- some people need an extra hand, yet others could use a little extra appreciation for all the things they do for others throughout the year. I finally decided, after some consultation with my fifth-grade daughter, to spread some kindness to people who go out of their way to be nice to us during the year -- a coffee gift card left on the sly for the waiters at our favorite pizza place who regularly take care of us, as well as some of the non-teaching staff at our daughter's school. The teachers always get little holiday goodies from our kids, but how many of us remember the school secretary or the cleaning staff?

But we wanted to do more than that, so we chipped in some of our own funds and headed to the grocery store. We filled up a bag with some essentials and left them anonymously for a family we know who could really use a little extra food on the table right now.

I know neither of these gestures are particularly grand or original. But paying forward some kindness to people we know in our every day lives felt right to us. And it made our family holiday spirit feel a little brighter, as well.

Joanne Bamberger, who also writes at her place PunditMom and Politics Daily, is proud to be a part of the Yahoo! Motherboard.