It wouldn't be Christmas without the annual wave of cruelly ironic Christmas day tragedy headlines. You know, those there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I stories that bring a tear to the eye, and a sense of thankfulness at your own relative good fortune.

It's not so much irony in particular that we humans have a penchant for, but rather, patterns in general. That's kinda what consciousness is—imposing some sort of cognitive order on the world we perceive—and so we tend to see patterns and connections, even in random or coincidental events. This may just be an artifact of the way our brains work, but it's an artifact that imbues the world with a sense of meaning.

Which I guess is why the holiday tragedy is such an emotionally powerful meme:

A 9-year-old Clinton girl was killed when a tree fell on her family's Ford Explorer as they drove along Bailey Road just before 1 p.m. Sunday while on their way to a family Christmas gathering.

Acting Fire Chief Antonio Conte teared up yesterday at the scene of a house fire that killed advertising executive Madonna Badger’s three children and retired parents on Christmas morning. Badger ... lost her 10-year-old and 7-year-old twin daughters and her parents in the fire. ... In yet another cruel twist of fate, Badger’s parents, Lomer and Paula Johnson, would have celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary on December 26. Mr. Johnson, retired, had been playing Santa Claus at the Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan before heading to his daughter’s for the holiday.

Seven people have been found dead after being shot in a Texas apartment on Christmas day... The family was reportedly cleaning up holiday wrapping paper when a man dressed as Santa Claus fired shots.

Fear gripped Nigeria on Monday after a wave of Christmas bombings blamed on Islamists killed at least 40, including worshippers who were left begging for mercy as they exited a church.

Tragedies all. And my heart goes out to the victims and their families. But objectively, these events would have been just as tragic had they occurred any other day of the year, and without the Christmas theme. They just wouldn't be imbued with such a sense of cruel irony.

And that's the, um, ironic thing about our need to see patterns and connections in everything. On the one hand, it helps us cope by finding meaning in an otherwise meaningless and indifferent world. On the other hand, it can make coping with such tragedies all the more difficult by magnifying the sense of loss.