And That's a Wrap on Christmas Crazy 2017

There's this thing that I have always believed, but that was recently reinforced -- I believe most people genuinely want to make the world a better place. Sometimes it gets lost in the mud of life, but given the opportunity to make things better, most people will.

That belief is something I need to stay sane. It's how I scroll past horrible comments on social media without completely shutting down. I can't always see where the good intentions are buried, but I have to look for them.

Fortunately, sometimes the good intentions are right there in the open.

This year's Christmas Crazy total was $12,105.73. That's 12,105 bits of evidence that people really do want to make the world better. That represents hundreds of people reading about kids who have witnessed or experienced the worst humanity has to offer and saying, "That's not okay. I want to make it better."

Whether you chipped in a bottle of nail polish or an entire box full of wonder and joy, you left the world a little better than it was before. So thank you. About half of the total came via the kindness of the strangers who live in my computer. The remainder came via two Pittsburgh-based companies - Arsenal Resources and Industrial Scientific.

That's a whole lot of people who want to make the world better.

Good job on Christmas Crazy 2017, y'all. And thanks again. There are going to be hundreds of smiles on Christmas as kids discover the little bits of happiness you contributed, and that's pretty much the best.

(For the record, I didn't manage to photograph all of the toys this year. Timing was a little off, so missing from the photos are THREE car loads of toys and 14 bikes. The pile would have been NUTS if I'd had it all in the same place at the same time!)