Christmas comes to an end. Tomorrow is Epiphany. Those who still have a tree up can’t but notice the dry needles. The shopping malls and radio stations for whom Christmas is all consumption and sentiment packed up the glitter and kitsch days ago, where they’ll gather dust until next Halloween – or earlier if there’s profit to be made.

Our revels now are ended. Now is the winter of our pandemic and political discontent. There are dark days ahead and long COVID nights. There will also come days of warmth and light, evenings of light breezes and clear, starry skies. Now comes the in-between time, some of us still imagining our New Year’s resolutions might last until Groundhog Day, others firmly in the grip of old habits, both good and ill.

Did Christmas come and go with any lasting consequences? Was all that talk about peace and good an exercise in mass self-consolation? How will you keep Christmas in the days to come? What might you return to from these days of reflection?