There is always a sense of relief, mingled with regret, when the Christmas season is definitely over – Relief, because it is always impossible to achieve again the wonder Christmas held for us as children – the failure to do so is too hard to bear.
And so, today, as I walked eastward on North Avenue, with a bitter east wind driving cold stinging rain in my face, I felt glad and elated, happy to be back again in the hard facts of reality.
Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, January 2, 1941