This year, as one of our readers noted, Santa arrived in a bucket truck.

Hundreds of Santas in dozens of trucks, actually.

Most of these kindly souls were from Maine, but dozens of others traveled here from Canada, Connecticut and elsewhere to help restore power to thousands of homes and businesses.

We wonder if linemen and tree crews fully realize the level of relief and exuberance of smiles they bring as soon as their trucks arrive on our streets and we hear the buzz of saws clearing broken limbs.

It’s comparable to every time a bell rings and an angel gets its wings. Every time a homeowner-without-power senses that first flicker of light, smiles break out all around — a natural and spontaneous reaction to a good deed.

We hope that every crewmember tasked with clearing our lines in sub-zero temperatures fully realizes the power of their presence.

More than 123,000 people in Maine lost power at some point during the lingering rain and ice storm that hit us early this week. By noon on Thursday, the number of outages was down to 30,813, which is still a lot, but given the extraordinary amount of limb and wire damage and the dangerous conditions the crews were working under, that’s tremendous progress.

For those left without power on Christmas Day, that may not be comforting, but the fact is that while most people were at home — with power or without — hundreds of line crews were out in the cold working, unable to spend Christmas with their own families. And, dozens more supporting these crews by fixing equipment, manning utility outage customer service lines and dispatching trucks to help.

In all, CMP had 1,800 people working the holiday.

This is the second Christmas week in a row that Maine’s utility workers have been out in the field, clearing and repairing lines. Last year, a windstorm hit the coast and knocked out power to 64,000 customers three days before Christmas, and it took days to clear the damage.

And, last year, utility and tree crews also worked the weekend just after Thanksgiving to bring power back to some 50,000 customers after a wild windstorm blew through Maine. They were back at it again a couple of days later when another windstorm hit.

When storms of that magnitude bring such damage to Maine, we rely on the kindness of other utility companies to come here and help. And, when others are in need, our utility crews return the favor.

On Halloween in 2012, CMP scrambled to restore power to 155,000 Maine customers in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and then sent 28 two-man crews and bucket trucks — along with mechanics and other support personnel — to Connecticut to assist customers there.

At the time, CMP President Sara Burns pointed out that companies from around New England and Canada have long helped Maine recover from big storms and it’s important that we recognize that assistance and help our neighbors when we can.

It was the second consecutive Halloween that CMP had crews in Connecticut. In 2011, after crews tackled 165,000 outages from the Halloween snowstorm in Maine, they went west to New Hampshire to work and then headed south to help out in Connecticut, where folks were still digging out from the record snowfall.

Working a holiday and sacrificing time with family is part of the routine for utility and tree crews, and while they’re certainly getting paid for the work, there is a tremendous customer demand that these employees make personal sacrifices to get their work done and done quickly.

It may not be angels’ work but restoring our power, bringing back our heat and lighting up our smiles is a pretty splendid endeavor.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.