During this season of giving, it’s tempting to take the easy way out.

Find another entrance to the store, so you can avoid the Salvation Army bellringers, or just drop a few coins in the bucket to assuage the guilt. Hurry past the Toys for Tots collection bins with a determined look and an empty promise to stop by again later. Those are among the strategies most of us have used at one time or another to attempt to be perceived as generous, even if we’re not feeling much that way at the time.

Two Suffolk women have organized a Christmas Day event, however, that shows true generosity.

In the midst of a day when most folks strive to be at home and engaged with family, Shequanda Boone and her mother, Nita Jenkins, plan to spend much of their afternoon serving a community of people who might not be able to enjoy the kind of Christmas most folks consider normal.

Boone and her mother have issued an open dinner invitation, welcoming people with no plans for the holiday to their community dinner. The duo will be serving hot meals and distributing donated items — blankets, gently used clothing and toys for children — at Living Waters Christian Center, 1226 White Marsh Road, from noon to 4 p.m. on Dec. 25.

“Nobody should have to spend Christmas alone,” said the 24-year-old Boone. “We wanted to find a way we could help.”

Especially on a holiday like Christmas, there’s hardly a more valuable gift than one’s precious time, and these ladies have committed to giving their time to folks they don’t even know.

Are you still trying to find the Christmas spirit? There it is.