Ringing in the holiday spirit

It’s just a bell. Well, two of them, actually.

And it’s just one 75-minute block of volunteer time among 216 others, standing alongside a familiar red kettle, ringing those bells.

It’s easy enough to credit the bells and the hour-and-15 minutes in front of Publix for brightening a newcomer’s season, but truth is, they’re only part of it.

The rest of the credit belongs to you.

The dozens of Longboat Key residents, visitors, employees and everyone else who streamed in and out of that supermarket on a cold, mostly rainy morning made all the difference.

The smiles, the eye contact and nods, the promise from one man to return with a “real’’ bell to replace the ones that were “too quiet’’ for his taste.

And the man with the distinctive British accent who walked past and paused to thank me for my volunteerism and added it was “too bloody cold out here.’’

And the lady with the extra cup of coffee.

Oh, right. About that “brightening” part.

Like a lot of you, I’m sure, Christmas changed for me somewhere about the time I had to stop being a child for once and for all and grow up. Specifically, Saturday, Dec. 15, 1984: Graduation day at University of South Florida.

"Like a lot of you, I’m sure, Christmas changed for me somewhere about the time I had to stop being a child for once and for all and grow up."

Ask any college student about their most stressful semester, and they’ll invariably answer: the one immediately preceding graduation. There are finals for which to study, projects to complete, class credits to check and obsess over, jobs to search and interview for, moving arrangements to be made and much, much more.

Now add the Christmas season hurtling ever closer. Did I mention I was starting a new job two days later, on the other side of the state, and hadn’t even thought of packing, much less getting jazzed for the season.

I think everyone on my Christmas list got some combination of $5 Domino’s Pizza gift certificates that year.

Years later, marriage and kids made the holidays more fun, but let’s face it, Christmas is a lot of work, especially in a two-journalist family. You find the joy where you can and try to minimize the drudgery, even when it means working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Years. Merry Wednesday, December 28!

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling.

And here’s another that I’m sure most of you have learned along the way, too: Doing something for others makes all the difference.

Lots of people have lots of ways to deal with what Elvis called “Blue Christmas.’’ What works for me might not necessarily work for you. But try to find something.

Only a few days remain for the Kiwanis Club’s Salvation Army kettle-ringing campaign. Longboat is regularly the most generous of the kettle donation sites in the Sarasota area, something that should make you proud.

Your donations make a big difference in the lives of people you’ll never know. That, by far, is the most important reason for giving.

But before you pack away that feeling for a second, know, too, that you’re also making a difference, big or small, in the disposition of that lady or gentlemen standing by, ringing the bells.

Thank you. And I’ll be back next year.

Eric Garwood is coming close to completing his first year as managing editor of the Longboat Observer. He stood his bell-ringing post on Dec. 9 and Dec. 16.