I think I fall about halfway up the “Santa scale.” Yes, I have roasted chestnuts on an open fire (they weren’t bad, but an oven is a lot easier, not to mention safer. When you’ve had to dodge an exploding chestnut, you realize that modern conveniences are good things). No, I have not had figgy pudding. Although I’ve gone caroling and demanded it more than once, nobody’s given me any, which didn’t upset me as the idea of figs in pudding sounded borderline disgusting. Turns out, though, it’s not a milk-Bill Cosby commercial-pudding. It’s a cooked dessert, kind of like a dense, moist cake. So maybe not bad, although I couldn’t say as nobody’s brought me any right here. To be fair, however, I do remember singing that I would not go until I got some, and as I’m not still standing in the rec room of that nursing home warbling my head off, I can’t blame people for assuming I wasn’t all that serious about wanting it.

My mother and I used to make ornaments, a new kind each year. I still have a few, painted wood from the year I turned 10, if I remember right. We used to make photo ornaments each year, but then life got away from us and we haven’t for the last year or so. Next year. We own artificial Christmas trees, as we both have allergies, and they’re already up. Yes, “they.” We own multiple trees. Upside, little needle drop and you can put them up whenever you have time. Downside, no woodsy tree scent. Upside, no woodsy tree pollen. Still, we’ve hauled out the ornaments and lights, festooned the trees (how often do you have an excuse to say you’ve “festooned?”) and hung the stockings (not necessarily with great care, but they’re up there).

Yes, there are sad memories at this time of year. We’ve both lost people around Christmas, so the ghosts of Christmas Past have familiar faces, making this a good time to toast absent friends and loved ones, and do something nice for someone who isn’t expecting it in memory of love that has been. Also a good time for eating figgy pudding, if anyone gives you any. Not that I’m hinting or anything.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It says in the Bible (Matthew 6:34, if you’re interested), “Be not anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will bring its own cares. Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof.” How often have I missed a good moment because I’m too busy looking backward, or forward? Someone once said, “If you ain’t where you is, you ain’t nowhere,” and it makes sense. If your mind is in one place and your body’s in another, where are you? I’m trying to spin around in circles less and be where I am, otherwise one day my life will be over and I’ll never have lived it!

When I say, “I can never forget 9/11,” or “the images from that day are seared into my brain,” I’m not employing hyperbole. I’m not being dramatic for effect.

Back then, a friend and I worked for a monitoring service. We watched news programs and created logs of what was said, what images were shown. It involved sitting with a computer, very close to a television, backing up and going forward through scenes more than once to catch any mention of a company or brand name, or any display of a logo, even in the background.

Back when a small band of nutjobs bombed the Murrah Federal Building, they used a name-brand rental van, so we were told to keep monitoring as long as the news coverage lasted, watching every scene in closeup, looking for every mention of the company, a client of our employers. Because the name of a national rental company, and the brand names of some of the products used ,were mentioned over and over in the news coverage, we watched, cringing, for hours on end.

When a different group of nutjobs turned airplanes and innocent travelers into bombs, the company told us again we had to remain on duty, around the clock.

After several hideous hours watching the images repeat and repeat, I asked if we could stop monitoring. No, I was told, we must stay at our posts. After a few more hours, watching that poor man dive from a falling skyscraper over and over, I asked again if we could stop for the night. In an angry email, my supervisor told me that we were to keep watching, miss no detail, no matter how many times it was repeated.

At the time, I needed the money, and the job, such as it was, but it was evident that there was nothing of interest to our clients, and, I explained, the concerns of XYZ Corporation that its logo might show up in the background as people fled for their lives was not the most important thing happening. I heard from other monitors, who were sitting, weeping, as they worked, just as I was. Having been told we would keep watching every minute or lose our jobs, we were seeing repeated scenes of horror, up close, hearing the cries again and again.

Finally, I told my supervisor I was quitting. I explained, as eloquently as I knew how, that asking people to view such tragedy over and over for hours was not only unnecessary, it was cruel in the most sincere meaning of that word. I kept talking until I was heard. At last I broke through. He admitted that under stress and having to make quick decisions without guidance, he had made a serious mistake. We could stop, he told me. As I remember it, he didn’t actually apologize, but he did allow us to turn off the coverage and gather our wits as best we could.

When I think of 9/11 and ask myself, “how could such a thing happen?,” I remember that day. I remember how easy it is, under the influence of stress, to be unkind to each other, and how that can turn to cruelty. If we don’t allow ourselves that critical moment to think things through, if we’re so insecure we can’t question ourselves, our motives, our decisions, we risk giving ourselves permission to inflict the worst of ourselves on others. There can be no justification for cruelty. If we make excuses to ourselves for treating anyone with contempt, we need look no further than our own mirrors to find the heart of the problem.