It’s a miracle. A Christmas miracle.

Just when I thought I was to come up empty in a search for this week’s column, an epic rant lands in my newsroom telephone mailbox.

In this message, a fellow named Daniel poses three questions on the nature of the holidays — questions that I am to research so that I might provide illumination for my readers.

I’m not going to actually research anything. I mean, come on. It’s the holidays. But Daniel’s observations are worth sharing because they’re insightful, they’re thought-provoking and they will fill column space so that I can go out and play in the snow.

No. 1 observation: Christmas TV specials. Why, Daniel wants to know, do all of the classic Christmas shows air immediately after Thanksgiving and then never air again when people want to actually watch them?

You can see his point. In TV world, all of our favorite Christmas icons — Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch and his funny dog, Charlie Brown and his hideous tree — have been banished to the gloom of late November, when most people are watching football and nursing Thanksgiving hangovers. If they really wanted to market those shows for kids and families, it seems like they’d wait until later in December, when schoolkids get long winter vacations, the lucky little rats.

“Instead, when school vacations roll around, all you get are reruns, “NCIS” and the big game,” Daniel said. “I don’t know what the networks are thinking.”

Me neither, brother. My guess? It’s all part of the government mind-control operation known as Christmas Creep. The earlier you can get people thinking about the holiday, the sooner you can get them out in the stores spending their hard-earned green. The networks aren’t in business to entertain you, after all. They’re in business to sell you crap.

No. 2: Christmas music. Daniel, an actual musicologist (I had to look that up to make sure it’s a real word) says there are somewhere in the area of 5,000 versions of the classic Christmas tunes out there.

“Yet the radio stations continue to play the same 100 songs over and over,” Daniel said. And here, I have to pause to punch a couple of walls and to stuff duct tape into my ears.

You’re preaching to the choir, Daniel. If I hear Jose Feliciano singing “Feliz Navidad” one more time, I will tear the radio right out of my dashboard and pitch it into the Lewiston canal. If it’s Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” the whole truck is going in. I’ve even grown to despise Bing Crosby because I’ve been forced to listen to his version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” so many times, it’s like some horrible “Clockwork Orange” experiment.

Do the stations really play the same stuff over and over? Bet your Yule log they do. One study found that 53 painfully familiar Christmas songs make up 90 percent of the radio lineup at Christmastime. Spend just a couple of hours in the car — or in the stores that still play Christmas music — and you’ll have heard all of those songs at least once and the loop will start all over again.

Why do stations stick with such a small number of available songs? From what I understand, it comes down to advanced algorithms that allegedly indicate that these songs are what listeners want to hear. Frankly, I’m not buying it. Next summer, when they drain the canal, take a look and see how many car stereos you see down there. Some of them will still be playing “Feliz Navidad.”

Daniel’s final observation, and the most important? When one donates gifts, food or money to help needy families around Christmas, how can he or she know for sure that those goods actually end up in the hands of those who need them?

It’s sad that the question has to be asked, but this is an age in which some of the most well-known charities are getting caught keeping most of the donated loot for themselves.

Consider: One charity that raised $98 million for cancer research was found to have donated less than 1 percent to the actual cause. Charities aimed at helping disabled police officers, dying children, abused animals, diabetics, the poor, missing kids, burn victims and many others have shown equally dismal numbers. Instead of forking over the bulk of donations to the people who need it, some of these weasels are instead giving it to their executives or corporate sponsors.

Nice, huh? The bogus charity phenomenon exploits the better side of human nature — the side that makes you want to donate that dollar when the grocery store clerk asks if you’ll help this charity or that one. The side that compels you to round up toys, candy and warm clothing for kids who might otherwise get nothing at Christmastime. The side that still believes that most people are essentially good and trustworthy.

So you can understand why Daniel wonders if the things he donates to needy families are actually landing in the hands of the needy.

“Sometimes I feel that there are people who are scamming the system,” he said. “I get the sense that it happens a lot.”

I wish I could tell you otherwise, Daniel. I would never want to discourage someone from donating to worthy causes, but I’ve also learned to never underestimate man’s greed and potential for depravity. Man’s greed and potential for depravity bums me out worse than that horrible Paul McCartney song.

The good news is that many others are struggling with this issue and because of that, more accountability is being demanded. People spend a little more time vetting the charities to which they donate. Others are eliminating the middle man altogether by donating directly to local churches, soup kitchens and relief organizations. People are still giving plenty. They’re just giving smarter.

And with that, we conclude this Christmas Q & A.

Thank you for calling, Daniel. Have yourself a wonderful Christmastime.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. Email seldom-heard Christmas song links (such as “Mele Kalikimaka” — but not the Bing Crosby version) to mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.

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