A ballet company based in Providence, Rhode Island, has been putting on performances of the Christmas classic The Nutcracker for almost 40 years. This year, however, they've experienced a slight hiccup: stolen costumes. Thieves took more than 50 costumes and headpieces — including the title character's iconic mask and candy-red velvet costume—worth a total of $30,000. As one news outlet reported, "One of three tutus for the Sugar Plum Fairy, the ballet's principal character, was gone. So was the Mouse Queen costume… In all, 52 items are missing." The Festive Ballet Providence's artistic director, Mihailo Djuric, called the theft "a significant blow."

But there was some good news in this story: more than a dozen dance companies, offered to lend their own costumes. As Djuric explained, "The ballet world is an incredibly tight-knit community and we are so grateful for the outpouring of support that we have already seen from ballet companies," Djuric said Tuesday.

Potential Preaching Angles: This heartwarming story shows the beauty of human kindness—people with similar interests and passions banding together to help each other. But Christlike love leads us to another level of human love—loving those who are not like us, loving outsiders, even loving our enemies—or in this case, loving the thieves who took the costumes. That is the kind of love we celebrate at Christmas.