I think I'm suffering from Post-Holiday Let Down Syndrome, that phenomenon whereby a certain depression sets in after a big event, even if it came quite close to meeting expectations. I've been riding a high tide of warm fuzziness since Thanksgiving. Every so often, even on the days leading up to my open house when every moment seemed scheduled with some party prep task, I'd stop and remind myself that the emotion I was feeling most intensely was joy. I took joy in the gifts I bought, joy in sending out the party invitations, joy in the presence of those who were able to come, joy in the four choral concerts we attended.

I took joy in anticipating a return to writing once all the tinsel was swept away. I reminded myself that a certain seasonal depression was bound to make its presence felt as winter deepened, but I even took a certain joy in that, knowing that it's part of the natural cycle and knowing that I have the freedom to feed my feelings with naps and hot herbal tea rather than have to work against them in the world of commerce.

This afternoon I spent about two hours working on my Feast of Stephen letter, that contribution to the much-ridiculed holiday letter genre that I send sometime this week in lieu of a Christmas card. Then I went out for a while, bought the last gift I need (a bottle of wine to take to my brother-in-law tomorrow), but came straight home because all the leftover glitz seemed so empty. I had a serving of shrimp scampi from the Carry-out Cafe, but it left me unsatisfied. And then I watched the news.

In my holiday letter last year I talked about how I'd abandoned my first draft of cheery family chat in favor of a meditation on some words from Ranier Maria Rilke that seemed to capture my feelings after September 11. He wrote of the earth falling away from the stars in a cosmic loneliness, and of the Someone he believed was holding up all this falling.

The news is troubling me -- wars and rumors of wars, claims of human cloning, two local tragedies, one in which a woman and her two daughters were found murdered Christmas Eve and the other in which a baby remains in critical condition after falling into a sump pump. I feel anxious and on edge, frightened of what poet Linda Pastan called "the year closing down on itself with all the vacancies of January ahead."

And so I've made a decision. I'm going to have some warm milk (without the sugar- and caffeine-laced chocolate), do some deep breathing, and have a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I'm visiting my sister, an even I expect will leave me feeling warm and fizzy again. And when I return I'm redoing my holiday letter, telling my friends not that we're well and happy and have a luminous accomplished daughter (facts they already know), but that now more than ever I know that I am borne through all this falling in part by their presence in my life.