After the festivities, a glimpse of eternity

THE ivy on the crib is drooping; the holly crisp and stale. We mothers and grandmothers are exhausted.

Supplies of food and wine are low. All the tinsel is coming down to be put away for Christmas 2006. Taking down the cards is always nostalgic, and so is the memory of our beloved dead.

Thank God it is all over for another year. Fr Geoffrey Preston suggests all the questions in a non-believing world: “Gold - the currency of politics, economics and commerce.