Just a few days later, the needles are falling, the poinsettias are drooping, and the cookies are stale. How do we hold onto the feeling? How do we hold onto the warmth, the wonder, the welcome of Christmas?

• Christmas letters - offering graceful glimpses of old friends;
• That rare mother/daughter afternoon, creating the most perfect Christmas of our lives;
• American soldiers sharing Christmas with war-scarred children;
• Virginia neighbors sharing love with a Pentagon widow;
• A Christmas pageant, so full of joy and giggles and energy, that I know God was smiling;
• A rippling harp lifting human voices to heaven;
• That sea of candles, shimmering with hope and memory, in the dark womb of this sanctuary.

Yes, my friends, if we try, we can hold onto the feelings, the images, the memories. B…