*Holly* The morning was fresh with new-fallen snow. I wasn’t due to go to work until ten o’clock, so I spent my morning drinking hot cocoa and trying to read. But I couldn’t focus on the book, and my hot cocoa didn’t taste as sweet as usual. I didn’t even eat the whole first round of marshmallows. I hated to admit it, but I felt like my holiday spirit had been sucked dry. Maybe occasionally in the past, I would feel this way for a day or two because I felt like the world was too far beyond repair, or because I’d had a fight with my roommate back at college. Maybe once I had a crisis trying to decide if what I was going to school for was really what I wanted to do. Of course, I got over all of those. But this time, the nagging feeling of apathy was just hanging around far too long. Eve

