Some of us may feel like our lives have become an elaborate comments section.

But Christmas is a season of hope. Senator John Cornyn and the mayor of Dallas came together this week. They came together to share the meaning of Christmas. Not the true meaning of Christmas, mind you, just a meaning of Christmas: We all find wrapping gifts exhausting.

They met at an event in Dallas to wrap presents for wee munchkins at a shelter. The two may now represent the same party, and this was a chance for them to get to know each other.

First, they organized the presents by family. Some of the gifts were toys. Others, they observed, were also daily essentials. When they were talking about a teenage boy, they surmised he’d need deodorant.

Then things started getting serious. The two adjourned to get a “little wrapping going on in here.”

Here we were, a local officeholder and a federal ombudsman working together to solve a problem. Among the problems they sought to correct was helping kids who have been through trauma.

But among other problems…

Like a Laurel and Hardy routine, Cornyn was tasked with wrapping a towel while Johnson wrapped something in a box. The head of the shelter offered something easier. Did he back down? He did not.

One of Cornyn’s staff took on the task of running play-by-play.

I, meanwhile, stopped trying to learn how to wrap presents as a wee munchkin and have taken to just handing people gifts in bag form. My lack of stick-to-it-iveness may indicate why I may not be cut out for a life in elected office.

But an episode like this can help us wrap together, if you will, the gift of compassion.