The perfect gift for the struggling homeowner

Now here’s the holiday spirit.

Employees ING Direct, an on-line bank, gave up their annual Christmas party.

Instead they will be donating the cash to a worthy cause – helping some of their struggling customers make their mortgage payments.

All told, the firm, a subsidiary of the Dutch financial services giant ING, will cover the monthly mortgage payments of 500 of its customers.

The bank forgave more $860,000, on average $1,700 per homeowner, though how much actually came from the cancelled holiday party is not clear.

The bank won’t say what it spends on its annual holiday bash, though if it’s anything close to that, it must have been something else.

The “lucky’’ homeowners who won this contest were chosen out of a field of more than 5,000. Each had to submit a 250 word essay.

The bank, in picking out the winners, apparently took a pass on anyone actually in foreclosure. Rather, it picked those with the most “compelling’’ stories.

Some were stories of hardship, as with the case of a woman struggling to keep current on her mortgage as she battled cancer. Another customer won arguing he should be rewarded for living a frugal and financially responsible life, including making all his mortgage payments.

Instead of the annual holiday party, the company gathered staffers at some of its main offices around the country to read some of the winning essays.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the place,’’ ING Direct executive Scott Lugar told BusinessWeek.