I Got Elf-ed Up

It’s great to see people performing random acts of kindness during the Holidays again.

 

The K-Mart Lay-Away Angel is one of the most feel good stories of the year: anonymous do-gooders are paying off needy families’ toy filled lay-away balances. Now this might just be the best stealth marketing campaign ever by K-Mart (“Let that usury-like interest accrue in the hopes a random stranger will pay it off!”), but I’m in the school of thought that there are still decent human beings out there that love to help those in need.

While I may not be kind enough to buy your kid that PS3 he’s been asking for, I have gotten into the holiday spirit, despite North Carolina’s unseasonably warm December. On an early December visit to see my family in Georgia, we visited the Atlanta Botanical Gardens inaugural Christmas light exhibit. My step-mother had recently been given a Mickey Mouse antenna figure that she had no use for, so on the way into the gardens, we found the most family-friendly minivan around and popped Mickey and his big shiny ears on their antenna. I’d like to think it brought a smile to a kid’s face wondering how Mickey made his way from Orlando all the way to their Dodge Caravan.

Then, the other day at work, I was playing a game of pool in our break room when I returned to my desk to see that I had been “Elf-ed”: somebody had anonymously left me some Christmas cupcakes with an Elf-y poem asking me to pay it forward. The next day, I returned to work to “Elf” some people up with a candy cane and this image:

While neither of these acts are particularly Earth-shattering, they still made me feel just as festive as Charlie Brown’s wimpy tree does each year.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.