Column: It is time to think of others

Love the moment and the energy of this holiday season and it will spread beyond all boundaries.

This is the season to reflect once again what is important to us.

Two wonderful things happened to me in the past few days. The first one was in Family Court when one of my guardian ad litem cases, a child who has been in foster care for a long time, was adopted into a great family.

What a wonderful Christmas gift for each of them! A forever home for the child and a forever child for the new parents.

Nothing could have spread more joy than this for me.

The second came on a small piece of scratch paper after I had sent a small donation to a Lakota (Sioux) Indian School in Chamberlain, S.D. It read, “Dear Donor, thank you for the money and the supplies we bought with it. Can you please pray for me to be a better student? Thank you for the snacks, food and our teachers, thanks for everything, your friend Lyla.”

All that thanks for such a small donation. I don’t need anything this year. It’s all on this page.

Laura Ingalls wrote that on the banks of Plum Creek, “Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night Santa Claus was everywhere because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy.”

A message for a wonderful holiday season. Throw kindness around like confetti. Try it – it’s contagious!

Have a very merry Christmas!

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 3:40 PM with the headline "Column: It is time to think of others."