The Twelve Days of Charity

My Mom a few years ago felt really strongly that our family needed to work on developing charity.  Not that we were being super uncharitable, but she was just struck by the importance of developing charity to be more like Christ. So, being the amazing woman that she is, she created the charity project.  She noticed that in Moroni 7:45, Moroni lists 12 attributes of charity.  So she decided to rewrite the words to the 12 days of Christmas to help us remember those attributes.  The song goes like this:

On the first day of Christmas, true love is charity, and charity suffereth long.

On the second day of Christmas, true love is charity, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the third day of Christmas, true love is charity, envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the fourth day of Christmas, true love is charity, Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the fifth day of Christmas, true love is charity, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the sixth day of Christmas, true love is charity, not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the seventh day of Christmas, true love is charity, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the eighth day of Christmas, true love is charity, rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth*, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the ninth day of Christmas, true love is charity, beareth all things, rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the tenth day of Christmas, true love is charity, believeth all things, beareth all things, rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, true love is charity, hopeth all things, believeth all things, beareth all things, rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, true love is charity, endureth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things, beareth all things, rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, thinketh no evil, is not easily provoked, seeketh not her own! Is not puffed up, it envieth not, charity is kind, and charity suffereth long.

So every year, we are assigned one of the twelve attributes of charity to study and report. We usually just report our thoughts on what it means to us or how we've been able to apply that specific principal in our lives over the past year. Sometimes we give out a little visual aid to help our family remember in the future.  This year we mixed it up a little since we were all over the country for Christmas, my Mom had the idea of making a calendar for the twelve attributes and we each got to design one month of the calendar for our charity attribute.  That way we are really reminded to be charitable all year round!

This tradition has been one of my favorite Christmas traditions because it helps us stay closer to Christ and remember the real reason for the season of Christmas.


Here are the calendar pages we made this year.  This was our first year, so it's a work in progress, but I love it! Tyler made February and I made June.  (More like Elizabeth made them and we just told her what we wanted :) ) I think December might be my favorite though. We definitely have to endure all things!