Organ donation.

For most, it’s typically just that box checked at the DMV when you get your driver’s license and long filed away, sometimes forgotten.

But for those in dire need of a life-saving transplant, organ donations play a critical role in keeping their lives going, giving them the gift of one more year, one more Christmas with loved ones.

Transplants are being done all over this country and throughout the world every day. In the United States alone, there were more than 36,500 solid organ transplants in 2018. That’s tens of thousands of hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys, pancreases and intestines giving recipients the precious gift of more time with their families.

But those are just the lucky ones. Right now, three times that number — 113,000 men, women and children — are on the national transplant waiting list.

Additionally, there are about 1 million tissue transplants, such as bone marrow or skin grafts, performed each year. And while most organ and tissue donations occur after the donor has died, some organs and tissues can be donated while the donor is alive.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, nearly 6,000 living donations take place each year, representing about four out of every 10 donations.

Most living donations happen among family members or between close friends, such as Oula and Moustafa Khalifa, the brother and sister the Eagle introduced to readers on Christmas Eve. Moustafa gave his sister one of his kidneys and helped her battle back against a chronic kidney disease.

On the other hand, some people become altruistic living donors by choosing to donate to someone they don’t know. Such was the case this past summer when one of the Eagle’s own shared his amazing journey donating stem cells to a German woman he never met who was awaiting a life-saving bone marrow transplant. He was able to offer this gift after being tested as a match for the daughter of a friend along with hundreds of others — all their names and records going into the bone marrow transplant registry.

What better way to give the gift of life than to be able to give it under the circumstances of being alive to see the person — whether a loved one or a complete stranger — be able to go on and resume their lives.

Any of us can put our names on the list to be a living organ donor. We don’t have to wait until tragedy strikes to be able to share the gift of life with another.

There are registries out there so long as you are willing to put your name on the list.

Today, as we reflect on what is typically a holiday filled with cheer and life, let us also reflect on the potential of being a living organ donor and the possibilities beyond just checking a box at the DMV.

For more information on how to become a living organ donor, go to www.donatelifepa.org/living-donation