Forum, My Turn|December 2, 2011 1:50 pm|By: Bob Schmidt

Are You Smarter Than a 3-Year-Old?

He sees you when you’re sleeping.

He knows when you’re awake.

He know if you’ve been bad or good,

So be good, for goodness’ sake.

Now you can’t say you haven’t been properly warned.

I know, you’ve been awfully busy, and you really didn’t mean to leave it to the last minute, but, let’s face it, you’re flirting dangerously with the Naughty List.

Fortunately, there is still time to make amends and avoid finding a lump of coal in your sock later this month. I’m talking about sharing, of course. ’Tis the season, and some of your neighbors could use a little help this year.

If you are celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, your church or temple can be a great starting place for year-end sharing. But, to borrow from another religion, “there are many mountains up to Heaven, many roads up each mountain.”

Thirty years ago, my company spent a weekend painting the Florence Crittenton Home for abused children in Fullerton, and I have been sending a check this time of year ever since. A lot of you probably support Laura’s House or the Orangewood Children’s Foundation for the similar reasons.

Another local group worth mentioning is Share Our Selves, or SOS. Groups like SOS often appeal to us to help provide homeless or disadvantaged families with a nice, hot meal at Thanksgiving or Christmas, but the need continues all year long, even in normal times. And with California’s unemployment rate hovering around 12 percent, no one would cal these times normal.

There are, of course, national organizations such as United Way, or the Salvation Army with its iconic bell ringers. I give the United Way each year for not other reason than my sister-in-law ran the Minneapolis chapter for some years. But there are local chapters, so your contributions can go to work right here in Orange County. I wouldn’t want you to think you were inadvertently providing holiday lutefisk to a bunch of Swedes in Minnesota, however needy they might be.

There isn’t room to list all the worthy organization that need our help right now, or their addresses. But you can find their addresses on the Web. I checked.

What I can do is urge you to be generous before the big guy in the red suit finalizes his lists. I got to spend Thanksgiving with my grandson Derek this year, and he confirmed what any 3-year-old can tell you: You don’t want to be on the Naughty List.

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