Article January 20, 2003 Issue

The afterglow of Christmas

What sort of holiday did you have?

By David Horn

January Is When We Pay for Christmas. By this time of the month, bills have started to arrive to remind us of gifts we forgot we bought. It's the season when some of us wonder, "Did I spend this past Christmas at the manger or in the mall?"

I'll never forget the first time I asked that question. It was five days before Christmas 1980, in the foothills of New Hampshire's White Mountains.

A friend and I were visiting the resort town of North Conway, commercial center of Mount Washington Valley. As we grazed for those last-minute presents, we also hoped to catch a country-style Christmas service before returning home to Boston. According to the newspaper, no local churches offered holiday services until Christmas Eve, except one in nearby Center Conway.

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