Spreading happiness

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep spreading the love! One of my favorite chocolate companies, The Hershey Company, has just introduced little drops of happiness -- perfect for sharing -- Hershey’s Drops! They are a new bite-size way to enjoy and share the Hershey’s flavors you love. And to help spread the news (and happiness!) they have teamed up with Twitter Moms to ask bloggers like me how we share happiness with the people around.

Last December I participated in the Yahoo! Motherboard's Ripples of Kindness program, which encourages people to do random acts of kindness in the "pay-it-forward" spirit, and it was so amazing how people found ways to do good and spread happiness. It doesn't have to be a huge thing like donating a million dollars to a shelter, it can be something really small, like paying for someone's bridge toll or donating a warm coat to a shelter, or throwing a party at a homeless shelter, or even letting the car beside you on the highway go in front of you when you line up for your exit instead of angrily honking your horn and giving him the finger! We find ourselves so busy and wrapped up in our own lives, so we sometimes forget that making other people happy can make us happy too!

So, what are some of the ways you like to share a little happiness with people in your life? Here's how I do it:

1) Write little love notes and put them in my kids' lunch boxes.
2) Cut their sandwiches in heart shapes.
3) Text my husband with a little smiley face during the day.
4) Do something nice for someone in my family.
5) Make my husband a cup of tea.
6) Offer to babysit for a friend.
7) Give change to a homeless person.
8) Make dinner for a friend who just gave birth.
9) Turn off the computer and take an extra five minutes to read to my kids.
10) Organize a surprise birthday party (shhh, don't tell Alfie!)
11) Call my parents to say hi.
12) Email photos of the kids to my mother-in-law.
13) Tell a friend how great she looks.
14) Comment on someone's blog.
15) Retweet something you find particularly amusing or witty or profound.
16) Share a friend's blog post on Facebook.
17) Listen sympathetically to a friend's woes.
18) Pick up someone else's candy wrapper and throw it in the trash.
19) Plant a tree (hey, even mother nature needs some love!).
20) Put an extra squirt of hot fudge sauce on your child's ice cream sundae!

Here's to spreading love and happiness all around!

Disclosure: “I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Hershey's blogging program, for a gift card worth $25 and some product. For more information on how you can participate, click here.” . The views and opinions expressed here are my own.