As I type, it is exactly one week before Christmas morning. Now where did I put my cheer?
Holiday publication schedules require we highly paid opinionators sometimes get in the spirit of a particular event days ahead of normal. Like now.
I tend to be slow getting into the holiday spirit, though. Christmas eve eve is as early as it strikes me. It'll take all my advanced training to get in the ho ho ho on a week ripe with bad Santa stories.
But it's the last column before Christmas. Either I drop my moderately anticipated Yuletide yarn six days before Christmas or you don't get it until well after all the pretty paper's been pitched.
Nobody wants stale eggnog, right? Best to sip before the ice melts and the layers separate. The good news is I don't need a few nogs to deliver.
I don't have to make anything up, either. You can watch my Christmas message on YouTube and follow along.
It's a story of humility and grace that lifted a small population that needed a step up. It's a story of giving in the season of the greatest gift.
Last Saturday evening, a ritual was played out in front of the TV cameras. Four young men sat in the front row, waiting to hear which would receive the Heisman Trophy.
It was just like the year before and the year before. A well respected ceremony, but not one expected to rise above any other award ceremony. These are football players, after all. We don't expect much from these guys. Score touchdowns, knock the snot out of one another, go make a lot of money.
But when the winner was announced, something different happened. Joe Barrow, quarterback of Louisiana State University, was clearly wracked with emotion when he stepped up to the stage. Through tears, he proceeded to humbly thank the people who made it possible for him to be here.
There was nothing different about that.
But then he spoke of something else. Barrow is from Athens county, Ohio, an Appalachian county. His home struggles with the same kind of issues our whole region deals with.
Joe Barrow stated he was "up there for those kids in Athens...that go home to not a lot of food on the table...hungry after school...you guys can be up here, too..."
We're looking at the greatest public moment of this young man's life and he had the humility to share that moment with the people who just need a little gold in a world full of rocks.
It's a beautiful moment. But the grace, the miracle of the story came after the video ends.
Someone watching the ceremony live posted a Facebook challenge to support the Athens County Food Pantry. The challenge went viral, as they say.
Within a couple of days, over $250,000 had been donated to support an organization that provides food to over 5,000 households. That's the miracle.
It's the giving season and there are dozens of places in our area your gift can help make other people's lives better. Isn't that what the original gift was all about?