The Giving Manger: The Perfect Family Gift for Christmas

Move over Elf on the Shelf. There's a new interactive advent toy in town and it's all about kindness to others...

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November 21, 2019 at 11:00 am

No matter what your faith, celebrating kindness is something we should all be making more time for at Christmas and the Giving Manger is the perfect way to do this as a family. Created by American sisters, Allison and Lisa, The Giving Manger has become a fun and interactive family Christmas tradition that celebrates the act of giving, rather than receiving, in the run up to Christmas Day.

Already hugely popular across America, The Giving Manger is now available in the UK for the first time. Each gift set comes with a story book to set the scene, a manger, a baby Jesus and a bundle of straw. Every day children are encouraged to do something kind and for every act of kindness they get to put one piece of straw in the manger. As the straw pile builds, making a soft bed of straw, so the excitement builds until it’s time to the put baby Jesus in his bed on Christmas Eve.

An early adopter of this sweet Christmas activity was Jools Oliver who featured a picture of her children with the manger on her Instagram feed last year, commenting:

My absolute favourite time of the year. We have so many traditions from both myself and Jamie's childhood, which we have loved sharing with our children, they are so important to us. We have also gained a few new ones along the way from beloved friends and some I have just stumbled across. The Giving Manger - from the beginning of December each day you have to complete an act of kindness for someone else no matter how big or small, then you can place a piece of straw in to the manger and hopefully by Christmas Eve the little manger will be full of straw and you can place baby Jesus in there. Honestly the children were so excited to start and so far we have racked up a few straws each. I love hearing what they have done, be it at school or home and asking me if it deserves a straw… so sweet.
Jools Oliver on Instagram