Christmas may be long over, but two local charities felt the magic of the holiday season this week.Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Bermuda and the Bermuda Squash Racquets Associations Junior Programme were presented with $6,000 raised through the sale of Christmas trees.The donation came from Bermuda Brickyard Limited’s Peter Schindel and Phil Martin, who raised the money through their charity, BermudaXmasTrees.“The programme is quite simple,” said Mr Martin. “Peter and myself front the cost of getting the trees to Bermuda.“We pay everything and bear the risk of loss if the trees are bad, say from bugs. We recover our costs from the sales, with the net going to the charities.”People were able to order a tree in advance on bermudaxmastrees.com and choose the charity they wanted to support.Additional trees were sold at Bermuda Brickyard on Mill Reach Lane.“I believe that it is important to involve the charities in the annual event,” said Mr Schindel. “We do this by asking the young people from the charities to get involved in the Christmas tree sales.“This teaches the children valuable social skills, the need to think on their feet and increases their self-confidence.“These are skills they can use as they grow into contributing members of Bermuda society and for their future career choices.”BermudaXmasTrees has raised $27,000 over four years, with the funds given to various charities dedicated to helping the Island’s young people.The organisation considers how many children are being helped, how well the charity does in keeping children out of trouble, and whether the charity crosses social lines before making its selection.“I am very pleased that on behalf of BermudaXmasTrees we will give $3,000 each to this year’s chosen charities,” said Mr Schindel.He presented the cheques to George Jones of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Bermuda and Patrick Foster of Bermuda Squash Racquets Associations Junior Programme.“We both feel that there is a need to support young people [particularly those at-risk ones] and hopefully over the long-term doing this will bring the community closer,” said Mr Martin.