We finally understood that simple, basic, unremarkable human contact was remarkable.

And I think to the extent that holidays gin things up, that sense of, oh my God, some of us are still here, and here we are face-to-face, could be really magical this year.

Hey, this is Kelly Corrigan, and this week on Kelly Corrigan Wonders, we continue our short, three-part series that we're calling holidays for regular people.

For everyone who gins up big, glossy visions of perfection

that end up a little burnt around the edges. My guest is Anna Quinlan, who won a Pulitzer

and has written a whole mess of beloved books. I'll also check in with my brother, Booker,

to get his take on handling disastrous holiday travel.

Hi.

Hi.

We wanted to offer up some readings and thoughts.

And so Anna's going to start us off with a short reading.

So tell me what you brought.

I brought a piece that's really old about Christmas, although I'm always constantly aware of the fact that there's a kind of tyranny of Christianity that emerges during this time of year.

I mean, look, I live in a largely Jewish neighborhood in a largely Jewish city on Friday evenings or Saturday

evenings when I'm walking along West End Avenue. There's usually a lot of people coming back from

synagogue, men wearing talit and yarmikas, women in their best clothes, so on and so forth. So I'm very aware of other faiths,

but there's no holiday, there's no religious holiday in America that closes down the country

the way Christmas does. Oh, that's true. I mean, there are places that are open every day of the year.

The 24-hour diner near us in the country is open every day except Christmas.

That's the day that it's closed.

And so there's a sense in which we sort of swamp everyone else.

And the idea that somehow Christmas has been expunged from our culture, which of course is a

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