It’s hard not to feel a little let down after Christmas.

A few days after Christmas one year Presbyterian pastor Jon M. Walton was noticing that all the Christmas decorations at one of the local pharmacies had been removed. These decorations already had been replaced with Valentine’s Day trinkets and cards. Red boxes of candy, teddy bears with big hearts on them, red candles for romantic lighting. The clerk behind the counter was complaining to another of her co‑workers, “I hate Valentine’s Day,” she said. “I never have a boyfriend and I hate Valentine’s Day.”

Then Walton goes on to comment with these words, “Nothing is as over as Christmas when it’s over. The empty boxes, the pretty paper on the floor, the stray tinsel from the tree with which the cat has played and left abandoned on th…