Christmas always rustled. It rustled every time, mysteriously, with silver and gold paper, tissue paper and a rich abundance of shiny paper, decorating and hiding everything and giving a feeling of reckless extravagance.

The truth is that our way of celebrating the Christmas season does spring from myriad cultures and sources, from St. Nicholas to Coca-Cola advertising campaigns.

For more than a decade, I led an organization that put on an elaborate Christmas program each December. It was a big production, with over 250 people participating in more than 20 performances. By the end of the season, everyone who participated was exhausted.

'I am a bad mother.' Every Christmas, this is what I think because the holiday season fills me with such anxiety. I'm sure that other mothers are happily baking cookies, decorating trees, and finding perfect gifts for everyone.

I celebrate everything. We always had a menorah and a Christmas tree - not for any reason other than we always liked celebrating things.

Some of my favorite records growing up were Christmas albums. The ones I liked best were the albums that you could listen to from start to finish. You could put them on while you're decorating the tree or driving around looking at Christmas lights.

Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.

By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.

Over-dependence on finite resources, like oil, ignores the ability of our great minds to develop alternative energy for the masses, and in doing so ignores climate change and sets up our students and workforce for failure by not educating them about the needs of our future.

I truly believe the intention of creating positive change is so important to the collective consciousness. When you have a group of people that have the intention and the capacity, talent, and intelligence to actualize those intentions, then you have something really powerful.

We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.

Creating an overall healthy lifestyle for yourself doesn't require a radical diet or significant life change. In fact, it can be attained through common sense decisions about the way we eat, move, and live.

With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat?

An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version.

Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.

Looking back is a way to sharpen the focus on the things you want to change in your life. I think there's something about nostalgia that really puts a fine point on the here-and-now, and that can be incredibly fascinating and interesting and engaging for the mind.

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.

We are mandating forces to hold regular neighbourhood beat meetings. These meetings will give local people the chance to scrutinise the work of their local police.

It took me until my 40s to realize the five essential areas that are important to at least have a real dating chance. Obviously, beyond the physical compatibility, which is where we all start in junior high school, I think that intellectual compatibility and spiritual compatibility, emotional intelligence, and financial compatibility are important.

You still find a great sense of possibility here, and I want to make sure that Arizona stays that way. I want us to be the welcoming, job-creating state we've been from the start, a place where everybody's got a chance.

I know where TNT's sweet spot is, and when I read 'Perception,' I thought, 'This is a chance to play a fascinating, fun, challenging character but still within the realm of something that will sit very well with 'The Closer' and 'Major Crimes' and the other shows there.'

You know you have more to offer, and it gets frustrating when you aren't given the chance.