Like a lot of good Alabama cooks, my late friend Carol knew how to perfect her traditional New Year’s Day good luck meal: collard greens, black-eyed peas, and corn bread. She also knew how to make ham biscuits, and she passed them out to anybody working on her street — garbage men, linemen climbing the poles after a power outage, and her mail carrier.

She had a holiday soup and chili party every year and invited anybody who had no family in the area or anyone who wanted to drop by. I don’t know if she made resolutions, but if she did, they wouldn’t have been about her.

But our New Year’s resolutions tend to be about us. We resolve to lose 20 pounds. Go to the gym more often. Save more money. Enjoy the moment—all of that. But there’s something else we can do at the holiday season.

If you have have extra cash, do this: Instead of buying Aunt Sue that blue sweater you saw on sale at the mall, remember that she has a closetful of cardigans, most barely worn.

Buy a few extra gifts, wrap them, and put them under your tree. Use the nice paper and the best bows. Show off a little.

One gift is for the mailman, the one who just delivered the mail when the roads were icy and snow dusted his uniform. He came to do his job, just like it says in the postman’s motto about “neither rain, nor snow nor ice” keeping him from his duty. He probably has gloves on, but just in case, you can give him another pair. I found some for $10.00 at the Dollar Store just before the bad weather hit. You can stick the package in the mailbox with a note for him. Or her.

Another gift is for the fast-food worker who sits in a chilly window for 8 hour shifts. She could use gloves, too, the kind with the fingers cut out so she can count change and hand you the fries and Coke you ordered. She could use a scarf, too, to keep the chill off her neck.

Then there are the garbage men. There is a glove theme going on here, but the guys who pick up all those cans and make sure the garbage doesn’t spill in the street need some hand protection, too. In a growing city like ours, they’re the only ones who keep our trash from piling up and flowing over on the street.

If you have any extra money for this project, you can buy a knitted beanie to cover their heads in the cold, or some hand warmers for when they’re back in the truck.

The man outside of the grocery store asking if you can help him with spare change could use this next gift, depending on how you feel about people asking strangers for money. My doctor friend who used to work with the homeless in the tent camps always carried gift cards from fast-food restaurants.

He wasn’t sure what people would do with the spare change they were asking for, which won’t buy much these days, but he knew a hamburger and a cup of coffee could help someone struggling with addiction or mental illness or both.

If you start the new year by looking out there instead of in your own warm home where things are pretty cozy, maybe you’ll have the good luck those black eyes and greens and cornbread promise. You’ll definitely make some people feel appreciated as the new year rolls on in. And who doesn’t want and need that?