Alyssa Milano and The Gift of Christmas

Inside Television 533

Publication Date: 12-24-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

Alyssa Milano, from her mycharitywater.org page

And where will you find Christmas tonight? I suppose if your eyes are looking through lenses of belief you might find it almost anywhere. For some it will be in the sound of hymns soft as Silent Night or bold as Come All Ye Faithful. It may be in the toe of a stocking nestled next to the tangerine. Or perhaps Christmas rests its head on the pillow next to a sleeping child. It can turn snowflakes to magic and a turkey dinner into something that fills not just the stomach, but feeding the soul itself.

And sometimes – rarely and most beautifully – you don't find Christmas. It finds you.

I'll let you in on a non-secret. I wanted to dump the whole thing this year. No Christmas for me, no sir. I could find no reason to celebrate the season – not this time. The show wasn't ready to open.

Then I found something on Twitter – yes, silly little 140 character at a time Twitter – that changed my mind. And wouldn't you know, isn't the irony and the opportunity just perfect, that it has a TV connection.

I'm sure you recognize the name Alyssa Milano. You're reading a TV column, of course you recognize her name. Child star on 'Who's the Boss?' from 1984-92; adult star of 'Charmed' from 1998-2006. Movies, music, a clothing line and a fanatical devotion to baseball. A celebrity.

There are those who sneer at the modern times and the cult of celebrity. If I look back at the archives of my writing, I'm sure I can find my own contributions to the general theme of, 'I'm above all that nonsense.'

But a celebrity has an advantage, a power if you will, in the ability to make people pay attention. And when lots of people pay attention, and lots of people do one little thing sometimes all those little things become big beautiful things.

Did you know that one billion people – roughly thirty times Canada's population – don't have near access to that most basic of staples, clean water? Those that don't walk an average of three miles a day to get enough water for the day, then return the next day and the next and all the days after that until their bodies break down and they die. The result is weakness, poverty; and from that anger, hate and just not giving a damn about anything other than personal survival.

Alyssa Milano turned 38 this past Sunday and she gave the cause of water...her birthday. Through mycharitywater.org and by Tweeting the request, she asked for her fans to give to the development of clean water projects in Africa; specifically Ethiopia. And her goal of $38,000 was achieved and surpassed.

Maybe it was just the timing of it all, but I felt incredibly moved by this simple act of a good person who has earned the right to sit back, relax, and wait for the servants to peel a grape.

Maybe you won't see the relationship of this simple act to the celebration of Christmas. But I remind you that there is pretty good evidence that Jesus Christ himself was an Ethiopian, and besides which, isn't 'giving' the point of this festival of indulgence?

Take a look at the mycharitywater.org link. Do something yourself. Or do something entirely different for a whole different charity. I think, I believe, I know you'll find Christmas carefully wrapped inside your heart, waiting to be released.

Give peace a chance. Be seeing you.