Kipper : The Nicest Thing Someone Has Done For Me During The Holidays

I was recommended by Ya Jagoff! -- http://www.yajagoff.com to take part in a Holiday charity. Community Human Services (CHS) seeks to provide a small gift for a local individual or family using their services of one of their programs. For many, this will be the only gift they receive during the holidays, and often these gifts are practical, useful, and accessible. And, they give help each person have a bit brighter winter from a warm winter coat to a cookware to fun toy.

To take part, us Bloggers were asked to write about a specific topic and that topic is ::
"What is the nicest thing that someone has done for you during the holidays?"
Oh, what a difficult topic this is, because most of us have received a lot of special gifts or have had someone do something that was nice or thoughtful for us at someone point during the Holidays. Perhaps its something as simple as someone holding a door for you when your hands are full, or allowing you to cut in front of them in line at a store because you have less items than them. There's plenty of nice gestures that, when we sit back and think about it, someone has done for us.
It's not always about the nice things that someone does for you but it can be something as simple as showing a token of appreciation towards something you did for them. The Holidays are the time of the season where we are and should be thinking about giving. Each of us goes out and buys someone a gift or makes someone a gift with the intent on giving. Some people do it as a forced requirement, some people do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but both have to give some form of thought towards the gesture. Even if its just cash or a gift card, there's thought that goes into that decision.
We all in some way are giving during the Holiday season, however, it's the reaction, and response to our gift and gesture that makes the difference. It's that response and reaction that is the true spirit of the Holidays. The gift or gesture doesn't have to be big, or expensive or extravagant, it needs to have meaning. No matter what it is, the appreciation in return is what gives that gift and gesture it's warmest feeling.
For me, it was 1994. The day after Christmas day. The night before on Christmas day, friends of my family had come home from a day out visiting relatives to find their house in flames. Due to where they lived and the day of the year, the house was a total loss. Very little was left remaining. Complete devastation. A great day with family was erased in an instance and reduced to rubble and ash.
The next day (the day after Christmas Day), me and my family went up to see the damage. We cancelled our plans to help them with as much clean up and assistance that they could use. I was in my late teens at the time, as we shoveled ash, moved debris and searched through the remains for anything that remained. A very few things were left. They unfortunately lost pretty much everything in that house. At the end of the day when the sun went down and our light disappeared, the homeowner came over to me and gave me a vinyl record (what CD's were back in the day for the young folk) of one of my favorite bands at the time - Rush. It was one I didn't have at the time and it survived the fire. One of the few things that did, pretty unscathed.

He said "Thank You for helping us out, I know they're one of your favorite bands and I want you to have it. Merry Christmas".
They lost nearly everything and one of the few things that remained was given to me as a token of appreciation. That came from the heart of someone that just dealt with tragedy. It was the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for me during the Holidays. It was showing appreciation in a way very few people can and that's what this season is about. It's about sharing. It's about helping, but most importantly it's about giving a part of you to someone else to make them feel good... even if it's for 1 minute, letting your Holiday Spirit warm someone else.
~ This post was written from a prompt by Community Human Services Holiday Gift Drive in partnership with Pittsburgh Tweetup. To learn more about the CHS: Holiday Gift Project and how you can get involved visit:
http://bit.ly/CHSHoliday2013
View all the posts here