The holidays are a crowded time of year — with a lot of traditions, expectations and thoughts competing for our attention.

We are truly grateful for the organizers of Wreaths Across America, whose wreath-placing events help make sure that the contributions of our veterans are not lost in the busy days of the season.

As we often note, it is important to remember our veterans throughout the year. No matter how the stresses and strains of Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s Eve find us today, the strain on families who had a child, a sibling, a spouse or other loved one serving in our armed services was and is greater.

Yet those veterans and families bore those stresses, because they recognized that the principles and virtues and way of life that allowed Americans to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah — that allowed men and women and families to decide what lessons they draw from their family’s traditions, how to commemorate those lessons and how to instruct the next generation about those lessons — need defending.

Our armed services, throughout our nation’s history, have had to confront evil — evils that deny men and women their God-given rights to practice or to speak of their own principles and traditions. An evil that believe entrenched institutions should dictate to compliant subjects what is to be practiced and believed and cherished. An evil that rejects the value of liberty and God’s gift of liberty to free people.

So, again, our veterans deserve our appreciation and our time. Not only in May and November and nine other months but in December, as our families find joy in the diverse tapestry of unique and special traditions that the freedom the brave men and women of our armed services safeguard allowed them to craft and discover.