A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year greeting to our friends, family, and colleagues who follow the School Security Blog.

This holiday season is one I will never forget for reasons both bad and good. On the bad side, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings dominated the week prior to Christmas. I spent the weekend after the shooting in Newtown, CT, providing live interviews for NBC’s Today Show, CNN with Soledad O’Brien and Don Lemon, taped and live Fox News Channel interviews, and more. The shell-shocked faces of the town’s residents are impressions that will never leave my mind.

On the good side, like many parents across the nation the Sandy Hook tragedy reminded me of the joys brought to me each day by my children, wife, and family. Even as the national and international media calls persisted through the Christmas holiday, and requests for services mounted from school districts, I felt no guilt in stepping away for family events and activities. To the contrary, this year each and every moment was a bit more enriched by the stark contrast of what I was blessed to experience that 20 other parents just had taken from them in Newtown, CT.

I can’t transfer the imprints from my mind or the emotions from my heart that I felt as I navigated through Newtown in the days after 20 of its youngest children and six of its beloved adults were taken from their families. But I can tell you, ask you, and beg you to slow down, spend that extra minute with your children and family, and treasure each moment.

May 2013 bring a more safe and peaceful world for us all.

Ken Trump