IN my 81 years on earth, this holiday season must compete for the saddest, and for many of our people, most forlorn, by a mile. (In 1967, I was abroad for the first time in December, but my/our love was new; tougher was to be in the classroom on Holy Week, 1968.)

So, not for lack of trying. We have again shown that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Virus or no, many of us will shop till we drop, for the most thoughtful and least expensive tokens, gifts or aguinaldo. But it’s not the same this year, with all those unthinkable restrictions and regulations cramping our style and reducing the choices we had been used to.

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