Troop 39 Boy Scouts and Cub Pack 51 Webelos dens brought Christmas to Brandon Oaks residents. Courtesy of Courtney Pugh

Let’s send 2011 packin’! Please!

Here, a few more reports of good-deed “sugarplums” from our Christmas stocking:

* Remember this clever craft for next year: Making a cool tree from old phonebooks.

Joyce Bryant did, and gave one to Salem’s Curves-for-Women. She had remembered making them as a child at Southview Elementary School.

“We used ‘Reader’s Digest’ magazines then,” she said. “I decided to try using phone books. Use two, folding each page to the center; tape the covers together; add a dowel and ornament at the top, then spray-paint and stick on [decorations].” A plywood base makes it easy to store.

She made two while watching TV — and said she isn’t much of a crafter (this gives me hope). She liked the recycling aspect. And the childhood memory is sweet, too.

* Good Deed, Organized: Troop 39 Boy Scouts and Cub Pack 51 Webelos dens brought Christmas to Brandon Oaks nursing home residents.

Santa and family led the scouts in singing carols, and gifts were distributed: The Cubs had filled over 65 gift bags with toiletries and candies. (Pack 51 thanks the Golding family for coordinating the event.)

* Good Deed, Individual: Pam Ogden commended the kind spirit of “Dale, the substitute mail-carrier.” When asked if he knew of anyone willing to clean gutters, he came back after work and did so — for free!

She asked us to thank such folks who “go the extra mile to help a widow in distress.”

* Shortly before Christmas Peggy Ann Powell Daniel passed on to grace another sphere. She, too, abounded in good deeds. She was quick to comfort the afflicted: With food, sure — but even more with her bright spirit.

How we beamed at seeing her!

Dear friend Carolyn May said that “she laughed at Life.” That tribute reminded me of the late Roanoke College President Perry Kendig’s lecture at Andrew Lewis High School: Seek to handle Life with “equanimity,” he urged. Peggy Ann did so.

She herself was all-too-well-acquainted with grief — yet she made us smile. And that’s a pretty good way to be remembered.

So as we recall the past year and years — aye, the Auld Lang Syne — here’s a cup o’ kindness raised to Peggy Ann and to all you good-deed-doers. Now 2012 will bring many more chances —and challenges — to grace a day, to bring the light.

Joyce Bryant’s Christmas tree crafted from old phonebooks. Emily Paine Carter, special to So Salem

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Note: I’ll be taking a wee break to recover from 2011.