By Harold Brummett
Columnist

Christmas is a wonderful holiday. Children excitedly opening presents. The floor is knee deep in wrapping paper and packaging. The family sits around the Christmas tree with gifts having temporarily sated the desire for more things.

Christmas dinner is prepared and consumed with the warmth of family and friends in the afterglow of a now Christmas past.

This is how Christmas should be.

Somewhere in all this celebration, say a prayer. Pray for the Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman and Coast Guard. Pray for their families that have an empty place at the table and gifts that wait for a loved one to open them.

Pray for the serviceperson who misses their child’s first word, first step or countless birthdays as they carry out their duty so we can have the treasure of those memories.

Pray for the veteran who has stood the mid-watch peering into a sea without a horizon, darkness equaled by a mile of water beneath his ship’s prow.

Pray for the veteran who sleeps then awakened again by an enemy he cannot vanquish and knows no holiday.

Give thought to and a prayer for those policemen, firemen and medics who work while we rest. Pray for the children and spouses who witness or are victims of domestic violence even on this holiest of holidays.

Pray again for the policemen, firemen and medics that respond to those situations and carry the burden of witness.

Pray for those who have no tree, no presents, no dinner and no home.

Pray for those in nursing homes who look to the door for a visit hoping against hope someone remembers to bring the most precious of gifts – time and conversation.

Pray for the pets, the unwanted, unfed, homeless and unloved.

Enjoy Christmas, the bounty, the blessings, the comforts. Find a quiet moment, and at least say a prayer.