“Everyone wants sewers to make face masks right now (akin to knitting socks during WWll?). That could keep you busy plus reduce your stash! Patterns abound.”

This is a good idea if your area needs masks. Check with your hospital or clinic. My local hospital has posted a notice on their website that they do not need handmade masks at the moment. Other hospitals do though, so do some research.

There are many online instructions for making masks in a variety of styles. Check with the facility you are donating to so you make the right style.

Being creative is important. Being creative while helping others is important and kind.

Be kind.

Writing a different post every day can sometimes be difficult. However, I like a challenge, so I follow unusual Facebook pages and receive a lot of e-newsletters on varying subjects to keep my curiosity fed. Today I stumbled upon a question worthy of consideration, and that made me think of another, more important question.

If you fly, you know that you have to place small bags, laptops, wands, jackets, liquids, shoes, belts, and furry monsters (under three ounces please) in gray bins that then go through the scanners. One passenger can easily use three or four bins.

As people gather their items after they themselves go through the “assume the position” scanner, all those now empty bins are lying there, slowing down the conveyer belt. On a good day, a TSA employee is removing the bins faster than you can empty them, but that is the exception. So here is the question:

1. Do you take your bins down to the cart at the end, do you take all the bins you see down to the cart at the end, or do you leave the bins where they are sitting?

This question was tweeted by Meg! Lewis! (I learned about it in a Nat Geo e-newsletter.) No one responded that they left their bins behind. I’m not surprised. Someone who does that isn’t the type to read travel tweets.

However, there was a split between those who only take their own bins and those who take all the bins. I do either, depending on how long I have before boarding.

You can let me know your answer to this question, but I would rather know the answer to the following connected question.

1. Do you take your empty grocery cart to the collection site in the parking lot, or do you just leave it near your vehicle?

2. Do you take other orphaned carts to the collection site?

Not everyone flies, but everyone goes grocery shopping and uses a cart sometimes (I prefer a basket, but it’s not an option when I’m buying cat food.) So, what do you do with your cart?

I always, always, always, return my cart, and sometimes I rescue other carts. Abandoned carts are a huge pet peeve of mine.

Feel free to let me know your answer in the comments. I won’t judge you. Of course, I hope that no one just abandons their cart, but obviously, some people do. I see them all the time.

For those who help others by collecting bins or grocery carts, thank you very much.

While I think this is a good idea, I don’t know why I didn’t suggest something for today instead of tomorrow. Even though I always like to go bed early on Christmas Eve so Christmas Day can arrive sooner, there are a lot of things to do on the night before Christmas. (Check out these three websites if you want even more ideas.)

Christmas Eve Activities

• Track Santa’s journey with the help of NORAD
• Set up a craft table to keep the kids occupied
• Set out cookies and milk for Santa
• Exchange one small gift
• Play Christmas music and sing along
• Bring cookies to a neighbor
• Read Luke, Chapter 2 about the birth of Jesus
• Wear matching pajamas
• Watch a Christmas movie
• Go to a Christmas Eve service
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen
• Set up a hot cocoa bar
• Do a random act of kindness
• Take a picture of the family in front of the tree
• Go to bed so Santa can arrive

Every nativity scene I’ve ever seen has animals in it. This makes sense since it takes place in a stable where the animals live. Plus, there are all those sheep that the shepherds wouldn’t have left behind.

I have two nativities. My smaller one that was a gift from my husband has only seven pieces. They left out the shepherd but included a sheep. That is how important animals are.

If you think about it, Jesus was already born when the shepherds arrived. Therefore, the first ones to see the baby, after Mary and Joseph, would have been the animals that lived in the stable (and probably ate from the manger where Jesus was sleeping) and the donkey that brought them to Bethlehem.

If you like to cry, watch “The Small One,” a Disney featurette about the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem. I only saw this movie once and remember bawling uncontrollably, so I’ll skip it, but it’s sweet to watch a familiar story from a different point of view. Remarkably, you can see this on Amazon Prime but not Disney+.

Rather than watching a sob story, you can do something nice for the animals in your life. Buy them a new toy. Give an outdoor cat a warm bed. Buy your fur babies a special treat. Christmastime can be stressful for pets so make sure you take good care of them.

By the way, I never see dogs and cats in nativity scenes, but I assume they were there. Shepherds use herding dogs and cats hunt mice in areas where there is hay, so I think they should be represented too.

How often do you do a job at home and then point it out so that your spouse will thank you? How often do you grumble because no one noticed that you vacuumed or emptied the dishwasher?

We all want to be noticed, especially when doing good things, but Bishop Nicholas (Saint Nicholas) preferred to be anonymous. In all the stories of him doing good deeds, he always slips away before he can be thanked.

Would we be happier if we did kind things for other people for their sake instead of ours? Probably. Why not try it out. Do something nice and don’t mention it. In fact, make a point to not be noticed. There is a lot of satisfaction in helping out in secret.

Try it three times today and see if the attitude in your house improves. Perhaps Bishop Nicholas knew what he was doing.