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santaImagine that it’s Christmas eve and you’re down on your luck. You might have recently lost your job or had some other huge financial emergency and there just wasn’t enough money to go aroundfor presents this year. You’re at a store trying to figure out what you can get for the kids so they at least have something to open for Christmas, but the money’s just not there. Out of nowhere, a man in a Santa suit hands you a few hundred dollars to buy presents, and before you know it, he’s gone. One Larry Dean Stewart did this for many years and now we can follow in the foot steps of his legacy.

Larry Steward was once down on his luck, destitute, and literally starving. He needed food so bad that he decided to sit down in a restaurant and enjoy a decent meal. Larry Steward didn’t have the money to pay, and it pained him so much that he had to resort to stealing to avoid starvation. Another customer had an idea what was going on and dropped $20 bill near Larry and told him, “I think you dropped that.” After that one simple act of generosity, Stewart resolved to be a giver as much as he was able each Christmas season, and he did just that.

For many years Stewart would wander around thrift stores, Salvation Army’s and just around the Kansas City area in a Santa Costume. He would hand out hundred dollar bills to anyone he saw in the store and then snuck off before a he would draw a crowd. He had intended to remain completely anonymous throughout his life, but last year he was struck with cancer. A publication outted him to the public and he decided to make the best of it by going public and encouraging others to be secret santas after he was gone. He made several media appearances telling about his life and how others can become secret santas. There’s now a “secret santa society” out there that’s following in his footsteps, doing random acts of kidness around the Christmas season.

One of Stewart’s close friends has now taken on the role of being the lead “Secret Santa” running the Secret Santa World website and is still spreading the message of doing random acts of kidness. Many of the secret santas remain completely anonymous. They lead by example, have a sense of humility and show compassion to the downtrodden.

This Christmas consider becoming a “Secret Santa” and doing and doing something generous for someone in need. It might not be handing money out on the street, it could be just about anything. It could be buying presents for a family who doesn’t have any money. it could be visting people in the Hospital over Christmas. There’s something very rewarding about giving that’s hard to describe, but once you use what you have to help someone out, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Whatever it is you decide to do, have fun with it, and be someone’s “Secret Santa” this year.



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