the Monday Book will be back next week, or maybe after Christmas. Not like y’all have time to read this week anyway. Meanwhile, please enjoy this sweet story.

I made a crack-of-dawn run to Walmart for a few essentials, and the cashier, whose name was Gail, was commiserating with me about the kids stocking shelves, who do not like customers in their way during the early hours.

We were laughing and chatting about the sympathy we felt for them and how they used their big carts to strategically bully the early birds, more power to them, and suddenly she came out with this sweet story.

“One of the other ladies who works here lives alone, and so do I. She told me she puts up a little tabletop lighted tree, sets it on a tray table in the window of her apartment.

Well, I don’t really decorate for Christmas, it being just me. My daughter used to love decorating our tree, and since she died I just don’t do it anymore. I said this, just in conversation, you know, and the next day when I went into the break room there’s this tiny lit-up tree sitting there with my name on a tag. And it says, ‘Your daughter would want you to have a tree.’ I ’bout cried right there.

Well, I teared up when she told me the story and had to stumble out of the box store with my cart clearing the way ahead of me. I about ran into one of the stockers. I told my husband this story, and he said, “You know we need to a gift for the postie.”

Perhaps it was an odd response, but okay, we did need to do that gift basket. We cobbled together Scottish shortbread and home canning of hot peppers and a few chocolates into a nice basket, wrote Happy Hanukkah on the card (she’d told us last week when we wished her Merry Christmas) and waited. We waited so long we thought we had missed delivery that day. She was late, very late, and driving her own car instead of the postal van when she arrived. From previous conversations we already knew she was driving up from Bristol every day and this was a second job.

Gleeful at not having missed her, Jack handed out the basket through our screen door. She clutched it to her stomach as her face crinkled. “You don’t know what an awful day I’ve had,” she said. “This is totally helping. Thank you.” She hugged the basket to her as she went to the car.

I saw a meme that said “What if miracles are made up of caring people doing good things?” Make somebody’s day brighter this season, y’all. Light one candle against that foggy darkness looming out there. They will keep burning long after our personal supply of energy runs out.