I'm still unwinding. Are you?

With the hectic pace of the weeks prior to Christmas and the approach of a new year, things get pretty confused.

Settling down takes time. I am sure, like me, you are thinking about the events of past weeks, wondering where the time went.

Not only time, but where did you put everyday essentials which you swooshed off tables and shelves to make room for decorations? Or just plain "stuff."

Where is the remote to the bedroom television? The stack of arriving bills, the basket with receipts, the everyday potholders (Santa and a snowman replaced them on the fridge), the mismatched everyday dishes, the magazines usually piled too high on your coffee table?

You hide all these "essentials" when company is coming. Out comes the sterling water pitcher. You're now back to plastic, if you can find it.

I had my annual party two days before Christmas and can only now look back at it and think about the friends I am so privileged to have.

Tim Condron's centerpiece, a surprise from my son and his fiancee, was superb. The food by Chef Al was cuisine I can't even pronounce let alone create.

But this year I realized even more how human beings can rally to a situation unplanned and not even imagined. Forget the year the electricity went out just as guests began to arrive.

That was a hostess's nightmare but tolerated because as one guest said to me, "Don't worry about it, we all look better by candlelight." We still laugh about it.

No, this time it was more serious. A neighbor who lives about five houses down from me fell on the sidewalk just outside her house as she was starting to walk to the party.

Two or three other friends arriving saw her fall, swooped her up and brought her to my house where good samaritans came from every direction -- one tending to her wounds, which were severe, another calling 911 on his cell phone, another grabbing towels and ice. Another guest who is a nurse calmed my friend until kind and considerate paramedics arrived.

The flashing truck in front of my house vied with the luminaria along my driveway and won out, but it was a welcome sight.

My friend had broken her glasses, there was much bleeding from a head wound and her wrist, and she broke her little finger. She spent Christmas in the hospital but is home now and doing well.

I was so grateful to my friends for being so attentive, all offering to go to the hospital with her if necessary. She is elderly and was badly bruised but endeared herself to those tending to her because she never once complained but apologized profusely for ruining the party.

She didn't. She actually helped show people's humanity in a bad situation, and we need to see humanity, even on this small a scale, as we wrestle with the predicament of the world on a larger scale.

But then something happened later that dampened my Christmas spirit. Someone stole the wreath I put on the front bumper of my car as it was parked in a mall parking lot while I watched a movie.

Christmas was over. There was no value to the wreath. This was its last hurrah. But why?

I was not sad. I was disappointed in people.

Some years ago a fresh new wreath with a large red velvet bow was taken from my front door.

That I understood. Someone needed that wreath more than I did. Perhaps it made someone's Christmas a bit brighter, someone who couldn't afford to buy a wreath.

Recently on my street vandals have been smashing windows of cars parked on the street. That makes me angry. I can't find forgiveness in my heart for such actions. I again ask, why?

So, we are into a new year with many of the same problems, anxieties, questions and disappointments.

But there are many blessings as well.

I think of the bevy of friends, dressed in their holiday best, helping an injured stranger in my living room. I think of the fortunate outcome for someone -- a stranger to them -- who is no longer a stranger. She's healing.

That, too, is life. And from time to time, there are happy endings. May there be more in 2007.