Reminder: It's Christmas

For those tech folks who have parents that are living and that didn't abuse you when you were little, it's Christmas. Call them and ask them how they're doing. Spend some time listening to them tell you about trivial things. Ask them what they think about things. Take time to be interested.

For many people in their 20s and 30s, it's easy this time of year to get involved in work and life and forget or put off calling the folks. The holiday season is a tough time of year for many people, especially seniors. Making them reach out to call you...only to find you're busy and distracted and don't have time for them? It can make a bad situation much worse.

We see a lot of posts this time of year for suicide hotlines, and that's a great thing that we should all support. But what we forget is that for every suicide, there are dozens of people that the season just makes sad or depressed. A little bit of effort on our part won't make us a superhero that saves the day, but it very well might be a very small thing that makes many peoples' lives a bit better and would otherwise go unnoticed. Reach out.