I write this on the winter solstice, the day before the longest night of the year. It’s the perfect metaphor for 2020, which, for some of us, probably has seemed like the longest year of our lives. But for more than 318,000 Americans, and 1.69 million people worldwide, it has been, quite literally, the shortest.

I’d planned to write a letter to Santa Claus for this column, rattling off all the things I’d like under the tree. Maybe a matching sweatshirt and sweatpants set, the fourth I’ve gotten this year. Or a self-loading washing machine so I can stop trying to convince myself that plenty of other people have piles of dirty laundry higher than their tallest children.

Really, though, I don’t need anything, don’t want anything other than to make it to the other side of this horrible slog of a pandemic, and to bring as many of my family, friends and fellow countrymen as possible with me. But how?

The lists of people dying in Illinois and our suburbs keep lengthening. At the same time the first vaccine recipients are getting a twinkle of hope, our death rates continue to rise. There’s a continuation of the disorganization at our highest levels with regard to the vaccine. Millions of doses sit in warehouses because the federal government can’t or won’t tell Pfizer where to send them. The president won’t take the vaccine himself, sure to add fuel to the conspiracy fire that’s led to nearly 40% of Americans saying they won’t get vaccinated even when the shots are available.

The federal government announced in November that 10.7 million people reported being unemployed. More than 7 million people who want jobs but don’t have them aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work.

And lest you wonder where the priorities are of the powerful people who claim to want to prevent that suffering, Congress just decided to bestow on Americans a check for $600, roughly the monthly rent I paid years ago for a Ravenswood studio apartment in which I could simultaneously put one hand on my bed and the other on the refrigerator.

In “findings that will surprise no one,” Brookings Institute research showed that people reported more stress and worry, and less enjoyment, in 2020. As with all things, the poor, who suffer from overdoses and suicide at higher rates, have been suffering particularly.

I see folks dismissing the victims as being only the elderly, or only those in long-term care homes, or only those with conditions like diabetes that make them more high risk. Even if that were true, which it is not, I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why we should put those people onto metaphorical ice floes and push them off into oblivion simply because they had the bad luck to get asthma or cystic fibrosis.

But even those who don’t care about deaths, or hospitalizations, or the long-term effect of the virus cannot escape the pandemic’s impact. It’s in the very food we eat. The other day, I opened a package of breakfast sausage that had an expiration date a couple of weeks out. The second I did, a putrid smell leaked out. It’s not the first time that, during coronavirus, meat that isn’t technically expired has told my nose a different tale. How can the horrible swath that COVID has cut through the meat-packing industry not lead to decreases in quality controls?

At overloaded hospitals, where doctors and nurses and janitorial workers are being pushed to their absolute limits, we’re less likely to get the kind of quality attention and care we’d have gotten a year ago. At the same time, those who avoid going to the doctor or the ER due to COVID can suffer worse outcomes from treatable ailments.

You cannot escape coronavirus. You can pretend it doesn’t exist, hold your wedding and your holiday party and your play dates with your kids’ friends. But it’s lurking. It’s not going away. This year, we’re all dangling in the wind.

So, what should we do?

Instead of letting politics overwhelm our good nature, instead of buying or ignoring or hiding our way through the holidays, let’s reach over and help the person dangling next to us. Everyone needs some kind of boost.

Make a list not of what you want, but what you can give.

Donate to charity — the Northern Illinois Food Bank or the Greater Chicago Food Depository are great choices. You can even take advantage of a special tax break this year for charitable donations.

Also consider something closer to home. Write a letter to a nursing home resident. Tip big — like, stupid big — at your favorite restaurant. Dress up like an elf and wave to a high-risk neighbor kid who hasn’t been in school for a long time.

More, though, than all of this, forgive. Forgive your grouchy girlfriend, forgive your unreasonable father, forgive your annoying neighbor, forgive your damned self. Let’s hold each other up, as best we can, this holiday season.

It’s the only medicine, the only cure for coronavirus, that’s available to us all.