And then I made myself a cup of tea—the old-fashioned way, by boiling the water in a kettle and steeping loose tea in the pot instead of nuking a mug of water with a tea bag in it—and sat down in the living room with one of the baskets of Christmas cards.

For a minute or so, I had to fight the urge to be doing something useful with them. Entering any new addresses or e-mails in my address book. Or checking the cards against my list of Christmas cards we’d sent so I could fire off belated greetings to anyone we’d forgotten.

“Breathe,” I told myself. It took a minute or two, but I managed to relax and see the cards not as looming chores but as what they were supposed to be—expressions of love and friendship from people we might not be able to see this holiday season.

I found myself just looking at the pictures. The Blankes—a retired colleague of Michael’s and his wife—posing at sunset on a beach in Bali. Eileen and Steven, whose wedding had been partially responsible for Michael’s and my meeting in the first place, on the porch of their North Carolina farm with their five kids, all in matching Christmas sweaters. Dr. Smoot, Caerphilly’s former medical examiner, standing in front of Bran Castle in Transylvania, smiling so broadly that you could easily see his fake fangs. A lovely action shot of the Mountain Morris Mallet Men, a troupe of friends who were croquet-loving Morris dancers. A picture of my friend Karen and her son Timmy—could he really be seven now?—in front of Neuschwanstein Castle. Pictures of other friends with children who seemed to shoot up faster than was possible from year to year.

I decided to stick to looking at the pictures and read the printed Christmas letters and handwritten notes later. Plenty of time to figure out if Eileen and Steven and their tribe were planning to arrive the same week as the Morris men, who’d established a tradition of camping on Mother and Dad’s farm for a week or two every summer and challenging all comers to freewheeling games of Xtreme croquet. And to learn if this was the year single-mother Karen got transferred back to the States and announced her intention of once again leaving Timmy with us for an unspecified number of months until she got settled. To read the note from cousin Wesley, which would probably once again ask us to come and testify at his bail hearing. Or the Christmas letter from cousin Dolores, who made Job seem fortunate and Eeyore cheerful. For now, I decided, it was a time just to enjoy looking at the familiar faces and thinking of all those who were dear to us.