Christmas spirit: It lives in these tough times

[babylonsister]

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Christmas spirit: It lives in these tough times
New Hampshire Union Leader Baby Review


Last Sunday, someone swiped the baby Jesus from a creche in front of a Dublin home. The crime made the news, and on Tuesday night, someone had secretly put a new doll in the manger.

"There are so many good people out there to balance out the ones that are not so good," said Lucy McDonald, owner of the pilfered nativity scene.

She's right, and then some. The good people do more than balance out the bad. They vastly outnumber them. It's just that the millions of daily acts of kindness and generosity seldom make the news, so we seldom hear about them.

Sometimes they do, though, and they give all of us reason to smile. On Tuesday in Sebago, Maine, an anonymous man showed up at a food pantry and began handing out $100 bills. The secret Santa, a Portland businessman, gave away $10,000 last Christmas and doubled that amount this year, according to news reports.

We see such generosity every year in the hundreds of donations, large and small, to the Union Leader Santa Fund for the Salvation Army. We see them in the smiles of the volunteers at the local soup kitchens and in the freezing faces of the bell ringers at stores and shopping malls.

Call it Christmas spirit, or just plain, old human kindness, but it's alive and well even in these challenging times. And for some reason, it always seems to blossom most beautifully as the days reach their darkest and coldest. Commercialism or not, you don't think the religious holiday celebrated on Dec. 25 has anything to do with that, do you?