My friends, I try really, really hard to not ask you for much here on this Signal Fire. I keep all I can keep free for as many people as possible, including these Signal Fire: The Sunday Editions, even though they take me an unbelievable amount of time to write, produce, record, and create each week. I try to not ask favors, I try to not bug you with demands, I really do. Today, I’m gonna buck that trend, and I’m gonna ask for your help on something that I think is absolutely vital and would be an amazing social experiment and one of the few rare ones that actually elicits change. Let’s get into it.
A little over 6 years ago, my lovely wife and I published our first children’s book, North Pole Ninjas - Mission: Christmas. The idea came to Sarah when she was dealing with her kids, and their friends, acting like spoiled little brats one Christmas many, many years ago. After one of their little friend’s came home and told her that the Elf on the Shelf (they who shall not be named) brought them a Disney Cruise as their little daily present on a random day in early December. This wasn’t a real Christmas gift, wasn’t a marquee-holy-shit-video-tape-this gift for Christmas morning, no, this was a December 9th at 7:45 am before school thing, from a little elfin spy that tattles on you if you touch him and threatens you with his Big Brother creepiness. Something in Sarah broke, and so on the spot she explained to her kids that she’d actually been given a mission from a secret branch of Santa’s elves, a division so clandestine that so far, they’ve never recruited outside help. These were the North Pole Ninjas, and their mission was kindness.
Instead of spying on the kids and giving them random gifts for 24 days leading up to Christmas Eve, Santa’s Sensei dispatched these silent little ninjas to recruit more kids to help. Each day, they would drop off a mission of kindness for the kids, and adults, in the household to complete. For the kids it could be something simple: Eat with someone new in the lunchroom today and make a new friend, or write a letter to someone you love but don’t see often enough, or to pick up your room without being asked. With the help of the parents it could be something more complex, but even more helpful for the community as a whole like donating a bag of canned food to the local food share, or helping to shovel off a neighbors driveway that cannot do it themselves. Either way, two dozen or so missions, out of 50 to choose from, delivered daily that all re-align the spirit of the holiday season. Instead of always getting something, it’s giving, and it’s always kindness.
After writing the origin story, we began sharing this with our nieces and nephews, with the kids of our friends, and across the board, it was changing things, it was reinventing the holiday that had for so long been aimed at receiving and buying, at the anticipation of what gift was coming next. Soon after, we were so lucky to meet with the head of Penguin Random House’s kids division, now called Penguin Workshop. It blew our minds, but we were going to be published, and so began the year long trek to its creation.
The book came out and did wonderfully great, and we were able to embark on a big book tour all over the United States, meeting with hundreds of kids and their parents, recruiting more and more ninjas to join the revolution. We went to bookstores and libraries, school classrooms and malls, and with us we brought a 6 foot sensei Mascot, one that we now own and Sarah has worn in local parades. We donated 10,000 copies of the book to Toys for Tots so children all over could have it, even if they couldn’t afford to purchase it, something that somehow slipped under the radar, but we were massively proud of. Everyone at Penguin told us that they hoped this would be the great Elf on the Shelf disruptor, the replacement that has been long-needed but hadn’t shown up yet. We crossed our fingers, we waited, and then, as it’s something that’s only up in stores for about 2 months a year, it slowly just fizzled out.
Sure we still sell some copies each year across the country and world, sure there are still great reviews coming in and we still get emails from librarians and teachers all over the world that use the book as their main holiday season curriculum, but still, we’re here, and we’re thinking that somehow this whole thing didn’t get the chance it deserved. It shoulda been more, it shoulda been bigger, it should’ve had the same luck that that damn Elf had when it was photographed in some celebrities hand and then put onto The Today Show.
North Pole Ninjas should be the float in the Macy’s Day Parade, and its kindness should be the driving force each year when the lights go up and the trees get decorated and we all get so wrapped up in our gift lists and buried in wrapping paper. Dammit, it should have been, and this is where the favor comes in, this is where I need your help, YOU, my beautiful army of compassionate, kind, ferocious warriors of love and good.
My proposal: What if we all bought a copy, for ourselves, for someone else who has children if we don’t think we want it or would use it, for as many people as we can think of or can afford to? What if somehow, we all banded together, shared this like our live’s depended on it, and SOMEHOW, made this little book a best-seller, even for a week, even once?!
There are over 12,000 of us here, just here in this Signal Fire, and I speak from experience when I say, if even HALF of us bought a copy, I think it’d crack the best-sellers list. It’d show the publishing world that kindness has a place, that Christmastime doesn’t have to be all about getting and receiving and the miles-long shopping lists we have to complete because we’re told we have to. It can be about doing simple, random acts of kindness guided by a little team of Ninjas that know only to do good.
I know this is a huge ask, I know money is tight, but it’s the holidays and I know we all have gift lists we’re already working on. The book and the missions are about $10 (and often go on even bigger sale) on Amazon, the same on Barnes & Noble, and is available in bookstores all over the country. You can even request it from your favorite Local and indie bookseller, like ours at Montana Book Co. here in Helena.
What if we changed things, what if we dethroned that stupid elf that sits on that stupid shelf, and gave everyone something better, something that celebrates everyday acts of kindness and the unseen heroes that are all around us, trying so hard to make the world a truly better place? What if we just said to hell with it, and found $10 that we deemed worthy of a bigger cause, and made this little book something bigger than it was allowed to be?!
It’s kindness in the end, that’s the aim, that’s the goal, that’s always been the goal. It’s not an exaggeration to say you’ll never (well almost never) get rich selling books, so I tell you with all the truth I know: It’s not about money, and never has been. This is about wanting more people, in more places, to choose kindness over all things this holiday season.
Buy the book, buy two, buy 10 if you’re able, as they make absolutely beautiful gifts for those that you love. This is a gift that turns into something more, that changes the way you look at this season, that transforms you into a ninja too, one trained in the clandestine art of doing great things without any need for the spotlight of recognition for them.
If you can, if you’re able, Please, let’s do this experiment, let’s see what happens, let’s get this little book-that-could on the Bestsellers list, so finally, people will see.
For all of you who order, if you send me a pic of your receipt or you holding the book, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a gift package from us right before Christmas, and it’ll be special. Like we’ll figure out a way to ship some of Sarah’s baked goods, toss in some very special signed gifts, and a CUSTOM POEM for you, written by me.
I love you all, here’s to kindness. Here’s to the power of all of us, pulling together, to make a change. Let’s see what we can do.
This is the season
we can turn it all around.
Kindness is the start.
Haiku on Life by Tyler Knott Gregson
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