WHAT: A holiday-themed news story that’ll actually do your heart some good.
WHO: An unnamed Austin woman who likes to spread good cheer to her neighbors.
WHY IT’S SO GREAT: This time of year, holiday cheer often feels more manufactured than authentic. You go into a store and employees whose ears are numb from listening to the same collection of canned Christmas songs and serving an endless stream of stressed-out customers shuffle busily through their shifts. Our cultural climate is so politicized that saying “happy holidays” runs the risk of offending someone who thinks that you should have said “Merry Christmas” instead, or vice versa. Disney crams its made-for-TV holiday specials in theaters, in front of the movie you paid to see, whether you asked for it or not.
That’s the cynic’s view of the holiday season, anyway. Others may see it as an opportunity to genuinely spread goodwill and seasonal cheer among your neighbors—like one woman in Austin who has passed out cards to everyone she sees for a number of years. We know this because George Resch, who runs the Instagram account “Tank Sinatra’s Good News,” was one of her recipients at Joe’s Bakery and Coffee Shop in East Austin earlier this week.
The Austin American-Statesman spoke to Tareem Alam, another patron who received a card. “Every year she buys all the Christmas cards after the holidays at a discount,” said Alam. “She couldn’t find many this year but still came into Joe’s with a huge bag full and passed them out.”
Although the Statesman story didn’t name the woman, her son did end up sharing her contact info on the Tank’s Good News post, so her new friends can go ahead and return the holiday cheer.
