Spirit of Christmas still prevails

I need to perform elective surgery this week. The carving I am working on has one arm that is half the size of the other. I’m thinking that the only way to solve the problem is to amputate the offending arm and create a prosthesis to put in its place. Thank goodness for glue and screws.

Sometimes I wish that solving problems in real life would be that easy.

An ongoing irritant is that the yard constantly needs to be cleansed of all the plastic bags, styrofoam drink cups, pop cans, and other assorted trash that the shrubs and trees have collected since I last cleared the debris a week ago. I wish there was a way to get people’s trash to automatically return to whomever it belongs, like a boomerang returns to its owner. Yes, I realize that some of the stuff is brought in by the wind. It had to come from somewhere.

The development of a boomerang trash flinger should be accompanied by development of materials that decompose in a day or so of being exposed to the weather. This decomposition should break things down to the molecular level or maybe the atomic level so that it doesn’t harm whatever wildlife that tries to eat it.

Granted, the boomerang trash flinger doesn’t exist. Yet. Clearing the yard by hand is easy enough and gives me an excuse to go outdoors and mess around.

Our country has many more challenges than trash. We, as a country, seem to have lost our morality and compassion. Granted, we have been an intolerant bunch since the first day we white folk stepped on American soil. We seem to be getting worse by the hour.

I am not sure exactly when it became acceptable to mock people. When did compassion become a sin and intolerance become a virtue? When did lying become truth and truth become lies? When did it become acceptable to be mean?

All is not lost. I did my weekly shopping over the weekend. After I checked out I noticed a crowd of people were clustered around the entrance to the store. I asked an employee what was going on. She informed me that it was the Secret Santa project. Clearly, they were good people who were trying to make Christmas a little brighter for others.

If you look hard enough you will see ordinary people doing what they can to make the season brighter. As someone who has been the recipient of Christmas boxes of food, I can tell you that it does make a difference even if the box is half full of cake mixes.

I remember a conversation with my mom about charity. She told me she didn’t feel guilty about taking the stuff people gave her. She said that people need to feel superior to others. They need an excuse to feel good. She was more than happy to take their offers of charity. Besides, those boxes helped us survive the winters when her husband was out of work.

Me, I despise charity. I hate the expectation of gratitude from someone who thinks they are better than me. I would much rather give than receive.

People still do small acts of kindness every day. It may feel like the world is going to Hades in a handbasket, but if you look really hard there are hundreds of Secret Santas out there who strive to bring civility and kindness back into our lives.