What might be one of the nicest holiday gifts is one of the simplest: an expression of thanks or gratitude for a kindness extended to another.

Christmas is a very appropriate day to give the gift of thanks for something given that was truly appreciated, no matter when it occurred.

Many people write letters of thanks to the Bangor Daily News. Not all of them get printed, of course, but several of them find their way to my desk, and I often save them to use on special occasions such as this.

For example, Madeline Brown, a resident of Phillips-Strickland House in Bangor, wrote to express her thanks to The Landlords, a local men’s choral group, who came and “sang for us.”

“We all were so pleased and entertained by their beautiful voices and harmony,” she wrote.

“We all appreciate their taking this time out of their busy schedules to entertain and please us. We are truly grateful.”

You might recall last May the Bangor Noon Rotary Club presented its annual spring fundraiser, Music Off Broadway, at Peakes Auditorium in Bangor.

Rotarian Linda Packard wrote, shortly thereafter, that as a Rotarian, she is often asked what Rotary does.

That production, she wrote, “is just one, shining example of what our service club does. Hundreds of volunteer hours by scores of volunteers made this fabulous event a true gift to the community.”

The performance “was a labor of pure love by our friends and neighbors” and, best of all, proceeds benefited the Bangor Y and Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Eastern Maine “for mentoring programs for middle school-age children,” Packard wrote, adding her “thanks to all.”

For People’s United Methodist Church of Union and Union Lodge of Masons No. 31, Myrna Soule thanks everyone who made its June Benefit Chicken Barbecue a success.

The event raised more than $900 for the Little Field Home orphanage in Malawi, Africa, which church members visited during a mid-July mission trip.

Were you among the 200 volunteers who, last summer, helped make the 2007 WERU Full Circle Fair a success?

If so, fair coordinator Martha Garfield “thanks you for supporting Community Radio and allowing us to continue being ‘A Voice of Many Voices.'”

She reminds readers that WERU FM 89.9 of Blue Hill and WERU FM 102.9 of Bangor “wouldn’t exist without such dedicated volunteers.”

To the more than 15,000 motorcyclists from all over Maine who “converged on the Windsor Fairgrounds, each bringing a toy,” on Sept. 9, Jennifer Brooks of Penquis extends thanks from that organization “and several other community action agencies” for making the 26th Annual United Bikers of Maine Toy Run such a success.

“This event truly supports the old adage that every little bit helps,” Brooks wrote, “because, at the end of the day, each county representative in the State of Maine received more than 600 toys to be distributed in their county.”

Brooks thanks UBM for organizing the event and for “caring so much about the children of Maine,” and she thanks “the thousands of bikers” who participated in this year’s event.

Galen Call of Levant is one special person to Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department transport officer Bert Cyr of Hermon.

One day last September, Cyr cashed his paycheck, stopped by the post office to mail a care package to his son serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco, put gas in his truck and headed for Hannaford on Union Street, he wrote.

At the checkout, Cyr discovered he didn’t have his money envelope.

Cyr searched his truck, retraced his steps, left his name and number at the customer service desk just in case there might be a “one in a million chance” that “someone would find the money and would turn it in.”

Later than evening, Call telephoned and asked Cyr whether he had an account at a local credit union, where Cyr had made a deposit that day.

When Cyr said yes, Call asked whether Cyr had lost something, which he certainly had.

“I was simply amazed with my good fortune in Mr. Call’s good deed,” Cyr wrote of the good Samaritan who “adamantly refused” Cyr’s offer of a financial award.

“Luckily for me a man of character and honesty was my guardian angel that day,” Cyr wrote in extending “a heartfelt thank you” to Galen Call.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.