I was watching Ming Tsai's East Meets West on the Food Network. He's making sushi, are starts telling this story about how his sushi master, Kobayashi, taught him how to make sushi.

You have to make sure all the rice grains are touching, he said, because if one isn't with the others it'll get lonely and die!

There's some truth to this, Ming tells us. Without the heat of the other rice grains to sustain it, the single rice grain gets hard and inedible.

I realized, this is just like Christmas. The holidays of the winter solstice are really a lonely time of year. We group around others, in office parties, and family gatherings, and for the opening of  presents, to keep us warm inside, to keep us loved. Without love, we become lonely, cynical, hard. We die, slowly, without love. Then we're no good to anyone.