Christmas

• On Dec. 17, 1933, during the Great Depression, an advertisement appeared in The Canton Repository newspaper. A donor using the pseudonym B. Virdot offered to send $5 to people in need who wrote him a letter telling him what they would do with the money. He promised anonymity, which was important because so many of the people who needed help also had pride and did not want it to be known that they had accepted charity. One woman, who was unemployed and caring for her sick daughter and for her disabled sister, wrote, "If I thought this would be printed in the papers, I would rather die of hunger first." B. Virdot was actually a pseudonym used by Samuel Stone, a Canton, Ohio, businessman who also wanted anonymity. He kept his good deed secret until after his death.

In 2008, his grandson, Ted Gup, received a suitcase filled with his grandfather's papers, including letters written to B. Virdot. Mr. Gup, a former investigative reporter for The Washington Post, investigated, interviewing families that had received checks from his father. And in 2010, Mr. Gup published the book "A Secret Gift," about his grandfather's good deed. Mr. Stone's monetary gifts led to some Christmas presents for children. Olive Hillman received a $5 check and used the money to buy her daughter, who at the time was 8 years old, a doll with a porcelain face and leather arms. Now 85 years old, the daughter, Geraldine Hillman Fry, remembers the doll: "I was thrilled to get it. It really was the only doll that I ever had in my life, so it meant a lot to me." Edith May used Mr. Stone's check to buy her daughter a wooden horse at a five-and-dime store. The daughter, Felice May Dunn, now 80 years old and the owner of 17 Welsh ponies, also remembers the gift: "In my life it made a big difference. It was my favorite toy."

• After Germany surrendered at the end of World War II, Christmas finally was peaceful. It was also a time for GI Ralph Bishop, who worked repairing railroad cars for two years after the end of the war, to do a good deed for the German children of Neidwald, Germany. In a 2001 interview, he said, "We weren't supposed to give the Germans anything, but how could we not? It was the first Christmas of peace for so many people. I went to the colonel and said, 'How about if we throw a party for the little ones?'" The colonel agreed to ignore official Army policy, and Ralph started to collect donations from other soldiers: candy such as chocolate, as well as bars of soap, chewing gum, and new socks. Also: oranges. Ralph said, "Some of them [the children] tried to bite through the rind. I had to show them how to peel the orange to get to the fruit." Now, when he looks at an orange, he remembers that 1945 Christmas when nearly 1,000 German children received gifts: "It took so little to make them happy. That always stayed with me. It was just a wonderful, wonderful time."

• The week before Christmas of 2007, a woman at a Starbucks in north Marysville, Wash., bought her regular iced tea, and as she occasionally did, gave the server some money to pay for the next person's order. Often, the day after she does this, she will ask, "Did it keep going?" This time, it did — it really did. She bought her iced tea Wednesday morning, and by Thursday afternoon, over 813 customers had paid the good deed forward, giving the server some money to pay for the next person's order. Starbucks shift manager Sarah Nix said that many people gave servers $10, $15 and $20. Any extra money not needed to pay for the next person's order went into the fund for Starbucks' toy drive. Assistant manager Michele Case said, "We're just so thrilled and proud to be part of this in our community, and it's cool to see how one act of kindness can grow so big."

• Between Christmas and New Year's Day, Howard Murphy was in his home in Scotland, looking through his kitchen window into the dark when he saw an elderly tramp whom he had seen many times before. Mr. Murphy knocked on the window to attract the tramp's attention, and then pantomimed drinking tea as a way to invite the tramp in. Once inside, the tramp pointed to a coffee percolator to indicate that he preferred that drink, and then drank cup after cup of coffee, ate four potatoes cooked quickly in a microwave oven, ate lamb sandwiches, and ate sardines from the can. When the tramp left, his pockets were carrying gifts: cans of food, and a can opener (when offered the can opener, the tramp smiled). Mr. Murphy says that this was one time "I took pleasure dipping deep into pockets, usually fast closed."

• In Spain, Epiphany — Jan. 6 — is an important day; it is the day that the three Magi visited the Christ child. It is called Three Kings Day, and on this day the Three Kings, not Santa Claus, brings presents for children. The night before Epiphany, children leave out meals for the Three Kings, and pitchers of water for the animals the three Kings ride: a horse, a camel, and an elephant. In 1949, young Plácido Domingo and his sister, Miri Pepa, were sailing from Spain to Mexico, arriving on January 18. The children were delighted to discover that the Three Kings had found their ship in the ocean and had dropped off some presents.

• During breaks in the filming of "The Wizard of Oz," Judy Garland used to talk to the little people who played the Munchkins. Meinhardt Raabe remembers, "Judy was just great to us. A very pleasant young girl." For a Christmas present, Judy bought a huge box of candy and invited the little people to dig in. Margaret Pellegrini remembers, "It must have been a 25- or 30-pound box of chocolates. It was enormous. That was her Christmas present to us." Judy also brought out a stack of photographs from her dressing room and signed them for any little person who wanted one.