They're Good for Goodness' Sake

December 18, 2002

The Boston Herald

The box arrived last week when my husband and I were in Canada. My neighbor, Al, brought it in and left it on the kitchen table. He does this. He brings in the mail and the papers, takes care of the dog, leaves the front light burning when he knows we're coming home and Katherine, his wife, waters my plants, and offers me tea, no matter what time it is when I knock on her door.

How did I get these wonderful neighbors? How is it that in a world where all you ever hear is how bad and selfish everyone is, I am surrounded by good and unselfish people?

I knew what was in the box the second I saw it: Dottie Kelly's gingerbread men. She sends them every year, perfect cookie people, one for every member of the family, including our dog, Molly.

The first year they arrived, I didn't know Dottie Kelly. But it was clear that she knew me. There was a gingerbread man with my husband's name frosted across its belly, and there were three other gingerbread people with my children's names, plus a gingerbread man for Baby Jesus, Molly and me.

When I called her to say thank you, she said that the gingerbread men were a thank-you to me. Imagine.

We now have two sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law, who get a gingerbread man every year, too. Dottie Kelly makes hundreds of them, all strung for hanging. This is her Christmas gift to people she barely knows.

I hang mine on a table-size tree, which my cousin Darlene gave me because Darlene's another one who gives and gives. "You like the tree?" she said. "Take it. I want you to have it."

"Take it. I want you to have it," she always says. "Let me help. Let me do."

And people are selfish and bad?

I don't think so.

Most of us are recipients of kindnesses that we don't even recognize. "Let me help you." "You can have that." All the holiday parties we're invited to. All the, "Stop by for a cup of coffee." All the cards and the yearly photos of families dressed and posed. All the family newsletters. All these are people reaching out to show that they care.

Most of the talk this week will be of things we have yet to do and of presents we have yet to give. It seems that we can turn even Christmas into a problem.

But what about the countless things we receive? What about all the gifts of this season?

My friend, Lois, sends me an amaryllis and a giant tin of popcorn every year. The amaryllis blooms on Christmas Day. The popcorn never lasts until then. I love that her gifts arrive before I've even written out my Christmas list.

Dick and Jane Kelley invite us every year to their family holiday party even though we're not family, even though we don't see them the whole rest of the year. And we stand around the piano and are part of something magical, not forever but for a little while.

Lisa Lopez sends a family newsletter, dozens of people send photos with notes attached. Every day the mailbox is full of these gifts.

Last week Katherine asked if I wanted my Christmas present early and, of course, I said yes. She handed me a quilt big enough for a king-size bed, every stitch hand sewn by her, every bit of material, cut and ironed and folded and matched.

I look at this quilt and am awed at the work involved, at all the time Katherine spent making something that she gave away.

But people do these things. They give their time, their talent, their energy and their creativity not because they have to but because there is goodness in people that, thank God for Christmas, is allowed to shine.