Starry Nights and Helping Hands...

I like to decorate with stars. They have a lot of meaning to me.

I bought a lot of glittery stars several years ago at the Mikasa outlet store. There, toward the back of the store, was a Christmas tree and all the decorations on it were for sale. I was looking at them and, when I spotted the stars, I decided I wanted all of them.

So, I was standing there, finding stars, picking them off the tree, and putting them in a shopping basket, the little ones you carry, not a cart. I was engrossed in my search and oblivious to my surroundings.

Well, apparently, there was this man who was watching me.....and he ended up walking over to the tree and, without saying a word, he started looking for the stars, too.

When he found one, he looked at me, then put it in the basket. Since I didn't object, he kept looking and kept putting them in the basket. He never said a word to me, nor I to him, but we worked together for at least five minutes.

He was a nice man. I mean, he looked nice. He was clean and nicely dressed and quite unassuming. It was not strange to me that he was helping me. I think, besides being nice, he was bored. My quest for stars gave him something to do. I am fairly sure that being in that store was not his idea.

And so, he and I picked the tree clean: all of the stars had made their way to my basket.

A little while later, after looking all around the store, as I walked up to the counter to pay for my stars.....that same man was holding the door open for a woman who was obviously his wife, and they were leaving. It was an odd sort of thing that I haven't forgotten...

It's those memories of Christmas past, and the simple acts of helping, that I cherish...