God Bless Us, Every One!

But most especially --

• that homeless guy begging on the street corner, who most of us pass up because we suspect he's running a scam;
  
• the woman trapped in an abusive relationship, who can't take it any more but is scared to death (literally) to leave;
  
• the family waiting and waiting and waiting to hear from their missing child, not knowing if he's dead or alive;
  
• the wife who will answer her doorbell on Christmas Eve, to find two Army officers bearing the news of her husband's death in Iraq;
  
• the bullied child who wants to hide from the world;
  
• the old man living alone, waiting in vain for a ring of the phone or a knock on the door;
  
• the woman who wants to refuse treatment for the breast cancer that is just the latest blow in a lifetime of illnesses;
  
• all the poor, the sick, the lonely, the forgotten, who watch from the sidelines this swirl of manic (and often meaningless) activity that allegedly celebrates a humble birth in a manger.
  

Goodnight, Tiny Tim.