Let the madness begin. Stuffed bellies, ringing bells, gifts to buy, cards to address, long lines, short tempers: Welcome to Thanksgiving Weekend.

Even though many of us will spend this weekend with the people we love the most, it’s often as much a time of stress as it is a time of celebration. We know this weekend marks the starting line for the sprint to “get it all done” before Christmas.

It can be hard to turn off the noise and block out the to-do lists enough to remember that Thanksgiving is about giving thanks.

I give thanks for my little people and for the sticky handprints they leave on the furniture, because someday the handprints will be gone and my little people will be big people.

I give thanks for my husband and for the knowledge that the basketball season will eventually end and I’ll get to see him again, but in the meantime, he gets to do what he loves for a living.

I give thanks for our health and for the ability we have to pay for an exam when we don’t feel well.

I give thanks for my friends and the fact that I can call them at any time and tell them all the things I’m not thankful for.

I give thanks for the love that fills my home because it is always bigger than the biggest tantrum any one of us could throw.

So how do I keep those things in mind during the next four weeks when the cycle of buy-give-get begins to spin out of control?

I’m always looking for ideas. That’s why I was thankful for this letter, sent by a woman named Judith, who uses Thanksgiving as a way to make Christmas more about having a meaningful experience and less about materialism.

“Dear Nicole,

At the risk of sounding ‘prideful,’ I want to share how I have been trying in some small way to forward good deeds and kindness within my family.

Quite a few years back, I started a tradition that has multiplied and blessed our Christmas celebration.

I give each of my children’s families a check at Thanksgiving. I am blessed with four children who each have families of their own. There are 13 grandchildren, and now I am also a great-grandmother of five.

The check is for each family to spend to help a person, group or organization. The money is in place of what I would have spent on gifts for the children and grandchildren. Their gift to me is to share with everyone when we gather on Christmas day how they used their money.

The different choices, the reasons for the choices, the sharing with each other, it just could not be any better than that. I do still buy gifts for the younger grandchildren, but once a grandchild graduates from high school, they are part of the Thanksgiving ‘give back’ gift.

It has been such a joy to see how they have embraced the idea and how the younger children get excited about the process and want to be involved. I think if this tradition of ours is helping to plant the seeds in these young people, it can’t help but grow a garden of goodness that will continue for a long time.”

Thanks, Judith. What a wonderful way to turn the next four weeks into a time to focus on the needs of others instead of on what we think needs to be done.

It may be worth mentioning that Judith is a widow who is living on a fixed income. As she says, “It certainly does not require great riches to have enough to share.”

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the Executive Director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison men’s head basketball coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.

I’ve been thinking it’s about time to retire this kindness column. I’ve been feeling busy lately. Really busy.

Diva Connection is taking off (thank you, God), and that means more meetings, more trouble shooting, and more time making sure women in our community who need something connect with the women who can help them.

I started thinking that something in my life has to go. I need to unload some responsibilities, create more hours in the day and become a better planner. I can only do two out of those three things, so I figured after a year of writing about kindness, it may be time to let it go. People either get the fact that being kind feels good and changes our world or they don’t. Perhaps there is nothing else I can say about it. Perhaps there are no more stories to share.

Then something happened.

I had the opportunity this week to meet a woman who has fallen on really tough times. About a month ago, she and her fiancé moved to this area from Texas. They planned on living with a friend in North Dakota until they could find their own place.

According to this woman, her fiancé didn’t tell her the whole story. He was having an online affair with her friend and wanted to meet his new love interest in person. Long story short, the young woman I met ended up being heart-broken, penniless and desperate to go home.

She just needed to find someone who could afford to buy her a bus ticket back to Texas.

I am blessed. I have a family and friends who would walk through fire to help me in a desperate time. I have come to realize that not everyone is as lucky.

So, I bought the woman a bus ticket.

The problem was I needed to tell my husband that I had just spent his hard-earned money on someone we don’t even know.

My husband often says he adores the “glory and splendor that is the mystery of his wife.” He wasn’t thrilled that I had made the decision to spend our money the way I did, but he understood that sometimes he just doesn’t understand me. He gave me a big hug and made me promise to put together a budget for giving – and to stick to it.

I believe people should give others their time, talent and treasure. I volunteer three days a week as the executive director of Diva Connection Foundation. According to my husband, I give financially until it hurts. So what’s left? My talent.

When I reflected this week on my experience with that woman from Texas, I realized that I have to keep writing this kindness column as long as The Forum will let me. It is a privilege to have a voice for something. And I believe that my voice was created to remind people that kindness can change this world.

So, there will still be 24 hours in my day, just like in yours. I will still be busy and overwhelmed at times. But when I lay in bed at night, maybe I can rest easy knowing that my 24 hours were well spent. I hope yours are too.

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the Executive Director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison Men’s Head Basketball Coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.

For the past two months, I’ve been walking around like one of those “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” monkeys. I’ve been closing my eyes, covering my ears and zipping my mouth. Why? Politics.

Every time I turned on the TV, switched on the radio or logged into my Facebook account, I was bombarded by other people’s opinions.

I love the fact that we live in a country where we can vocalize our thoughts. To me, that is one of the most beautiful benefits of living in the United States. The part I hate is when vocalizing our thoughts makes us ugly.

I am so thankful that this weekend, for the first time in a long time, I can safely go about my life without worrying about someone trying to discredit someone else’s character just to win an election.

I think sometimes we forget that these are real people we are talking about. People with families who care about them and who are hurt by the words we say.

Every story – on the news and in real life – has two sides. I became a much better journalist when I learned that lesson because it forced me to measure my words before they came out of my mouth. I’m pretty sure I became a better person, too.

Politics isn’t the only realm where negativity comes into play.

At some point during every basketball season, someone watching the Bison will say something about my husband that is hurtful.

Unfortunately, I’m usually standing with my children in earshot when it happens. I understand that my husband chose to be a basketball coach and therefore a public figure, but to my children, he is just Daddy.

Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Rick Berg, Heidi Heitkamp and all the others are just people who have families who love them.

Our negative comments not only hurt the person we are talking about, but they also hurt the people who care deeply about the person we are talking about.

I hope now that this election is over we can turn off the negativity and begin rebuilding a culture of kindness. We are a community. We are in this together. We can be the change we wish to see.

I hope you’ll spend this week smiling at strangers and sending notes to your friends just to say hi. Maybe we can all learn to follow the best advice ever given after the Golden Rule: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@

hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the executive director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison men’s head basketball coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.

There is a woman I run into on a regular basis who drives me crazy. She is always happy. I mean always.

She teaches a Zumba exercise class, so for a while I thought maybe she was happy all the time because of all of the endorphins she has streaming through her body.

Then she let me in on her secret. She is the founder of a secret society of people who are extremely wealthy in the areas of joy, happiness, contentment, fulfillment and peace. They call themselves the Day Makers.

A Day Maker makes a conscious effort every day to create interactions with people that will change that person’s day in a positive way. Instead of the innate “What’s in it for me? How does this affect me?” attitude, Day Makers focus and think about how they physically, emotionally or spiritually can change the other person’s day.

Here are the keys principles:

• Focus on using talents, gifts and possessions to meet another person’s needs.
• Plan detailed praise, and deliver it.
• Take the time to listen to people, look them in the eye and absorb their thoughts.
• Communicate openly and honestly.
• Ask people what makes them feel good, and do those things regularly for them.
• Forgive quickly.
• Love people recklessly by putting reason, fear of getting hurt and justification aside.
• Perhaps most importantly, flip the switch from thinking “me, me, me” to thinking “you, you, you.”

There seem to be more people in this Day Maker society than we might realize.

Like the person who made Betty and Jan’s day:

“About a month ago my mom and I went to Perkins in Fargo for something to eat. We had a great breakfast. My mom couldn’t finish her muffin, so when our waitress came by, I asked her for a box. At the same time I asked for our bill, and she informed us that it had been taken care of by an anonymous patron.

“My mom and I were both in total shock. I would like to take this opportunity to say ‘thanks’ to that person or people. As I said, I was so surprised I forgot to tell the waitress to give them our ‘thank you,’ so hopefully they will see this message. It was a delightful treat.”

Here are a few more people who fall into the Day Maker category:

“I am an 86-year-old woman who recently decided I really needed to go to the grocery store. When I came out with my loaded cart, a lady helped me put it in my van, complimented me on my outfit and put the cart away for me.

“When I got home to my senior living apartment, a man helped me unload the groceries. He put them in a cart by the elevator while I put my car away.

“Later that afternoon, one of my neighbors gave me a beautiful item she had sewn. These are the kind of acts that prove we indeed have wonderful people in the Fargo-Moorhead area.”

Keep an eye out for people who are unusually happy. You may be lucky enough to have a Day Maker in your presence.

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@

hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the executive director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison men’s head basketball coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.

My friend, Kristi, said something the other day that made my heart stop for a moment.

But let me back up. Kristi is a one-woman parade: marching band, confetti, the whole works. She walks into the room and brings sunshine and gale-force winds. She has more energy than anyone I have ever met. Anyone. Ever.

Kristi and her husband, Rod, have four kids. Jack is 10, Rosie, 7, Howard, almost 3, and Baby Olive, 5 months. There is always something going on in that house. And to top it off, Kristi runs a school out of her basement she light-heartedly calls The Academic Academy of Excellence. We all want to send our kids there, but enrollment is limited to immediate family. Kristi needs to homeschool her children to keep them healthy.

Jack has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Any hint of a cold or sniffle turns into pneumonia which means a stay in the hospital.

Jack was diagnosed when he was 16 months old. As an infant, he went through the regular developmental stages of rolling over, sitting, crawling and standing.

But then something strange happened. He stopped standing. Kristi and Rod took him to the doctor and ended up in a world they had never imagined: the world of a child with special needs.

Kristi has drawn her sword to take on all the dragons of this world. She dedicates herself to her family and fights for their well-being at every turn. She began a yearly fundraising walk called the Jack Attack, which has raised more than $100,000 for families with SMA. She is certain a cure is coming quickly.

I’ve never once seen Kristi lose her cool or fall into despair or even whisper “Why me?”

So, finally I asked her.

“Have you ever had that moment?”

Her response was what made my heart ache. She told me that when Jack was almost 2, she and her husband went to a professional hockey game. As she was watching the guys hit the ice, she thought to herself, “My son will never play hockey.”

Kristi’s grief was replaced by hope. Hope has given her son the ability to play hockey even though he is in a wheelchair. He also plays baseball and goes downhill skiing. He goes to dances and parties at Skateland, and hones his acting skills by performing in plays. There is much more he could do, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Maybe you’ve heard of Hope. Technically, it’s Hope, Inc. The people who started it, Bill and Adair Grommesh, became local celebrities when they appeared on Extreme Home Makeover.

I wanted to share Kristi’s story with you, because from noon to 2 p.m. today, Hope, Inc. is having its annual bowling fundraiser at West Acres Bowl in Fargo. Donations are tax-deductible, and Dakota Medical Foundation is going to match each donation of $50 or more.

Sometimes we hear about fundraisers without really knowing much about the organization or exactly how it helps people in our area. I didn’t want that to happen this time. I wanted you to know how important Hope is.

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the Executive Director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison Men’s Head Basketball Coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.

I want to follow up on the column I wrote last week about volunteering with your kids.

The day after it appeared in the paper, I got an email from a woman named Karen in Sykeston, N.D. I think she illustrates better than I ever could just how much of a difference one person can make in the lives of others.

“Dear Nicole,

When my kids were growing up, I took them along when I would volunteer for blood drives, cancer awareness walks and other causes, but it didn’t dawn on me until a series of tragedies unfolded how much my kids had learned from those little experiences.

My daughter Monica was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2004, when she was just 11 years old. During her battle with cancer, she continued going to school, maintaining a 4.0 GPA. She played volleyball and basketball, and was active in Girl Scouts and 4-H.

But she also did something I know I couldn’t have done. She continued to help others.

Monica used her allowance to create “goodie bags” for kids at Sanford (then MeritCare) and at Roger Maris Cancer Center. She would hand-quilt lap blankets and crib blankets for the kids in the hospital. She would buy coloring books, crayons, movies and games for the hospital’s playroom and deliver them on her way to chemo or as she was leaving from her radiation appointments.

She would just slip in quietly, drop off the “goodies” and leave. Only very few were aware of her gifts. So few knew of it, in fact, that when she slipped into a coma in 2006, she received one of her own Easter baskets she had left there the day before.

When her classmates became aware of her projects, they not only donated movies, iTunes gift cards, board games, toys and books, but also had their parents donate material so Monica could create more blankets for kids and babies in the hospital.

Monica was also the recipient of much kindness. Her classmates wrote and produced a song while she was in a coma. They went from person to person and business to business to sell the CDs with the song to raise money for Monica’s medical expenses.

As seventh graders, I think they thought if they raised enough money, Monica’s cancer would go away. Sadly, neither their parents nor I had the heart to tell them any different.

Monica passed away Aug. 18, 2007. One day before the first day of her freshman year.

Before Monica passed she made me promise her something that I will never forget. In her whispered voice as loud as it could be at that stage she said “Don’t forget the kids. Just because I won’t be here doesn’t mean the kids don’t need their goodie bags.”

That Christmas, with the help of her classmates and fellow Girl Scouts, we brought in more than 400 gifts for the hospital and Roger Maris Cancer Center. Even now, five years later, we still deliver goodie bags at Easter and Christmas.

Monica’s classmates still make sure to donate as often as they can to as many organizations as possible, to keep her memory alive.

So yes, kindness is contagious, and our kids will learn the right way to live through so many life lessons, whether it’s cancer, diabetes, friends or just great parenting. I say, as Monica always did, ‘Life is too short to be selfish, and too long not to help someone else.’”

Thank you, Karen, for showing us what an impact one person can have on the lives of so many others. Monica’s classmates set up a Facebook site for her the year she passed away. I wanted to share two recent posts that demonstrate the lasting effect of kindness.

From Micahel: “Dear Monica, today I watched the movie ‘Letters to God’ instead of doing any of my homework. Good thing it isn’t due until Wednesday. I thought of you the whole time I watched it, and it reminded me of how inspiring a person can be. … Thank you for everything you have taught us down here.”

And another from Erin:

“Monica, I often think of you and how you have touched so many people’s lives. You made me realize to make the best of every situation because nothing is guaranteed. You’re greatly missed, girl. I wish you were here with us celebrating your 20th birthday.”

If your heart is telling you to give a bit of your time to help others, check out the numerous volunteer opportunities FirstLink is coordinating in our area at www.myfirstlink.org.

Please continue to share your stories of kindness with me at nphillips15@hotmail.com. Or send a letter to Kindness is Contagious c/o Nicole Phillips, The Forum, 101 5th St. N., Box 2020, Fargo, ND, 58107.

Nicole Phillips is a former television anchor for Fox News in Fargo, and currently the Executive Director of Diva Connection Foundation. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of Bison Men’s Head Basketball Coach Saul Phillips. Her columns run every Saturday.