You know, it’s almost like paging through a photo album. Every New Year’s I pull out the last year’s file and rifle back through them, recalling the columns and enjoying again the pleasure I had writing them for you. OK, let me be honest: I wrote them for me, too. It was fun, even if steadily harder work.

Let me share a couple of great memories raised by last year’s columns, and then add a final 2009 note, not from any column but from Christmas just past. It hasn’t been in print, but it will stay in my heart, surely.

A year ago this time brought a great new feature to Fly Creek and a new distinction to our household. Fly Creek got back a barbershop of its very own when Reid Nagelschmitt opened for business at the Four Corners. Ried, at six foot eight is a towering figure among the world’s barbers, runs a grand old-fashioned shop, complete with back-issue magazines and wilted potted plants. It’s just like the old days; and when you drive by, many of the gents you see sitting inside, purportedly waiting for haircuts, are really just enjoying the ambiance and busting one another’s chops. Reid, bless him, has given Fly Creek a small-scale Mohican Club.

The big event at our house last winter was Blue’s receiving his official papers as a therapy dog. He’s now welcome at hospitals, nursing and retirement homes, and schools. Last month I tagged along at Bassett while Blue did his rounds.

Anne walked him into the surgical waiting room full of silent, frightened relatives.

She quietly introduced Blue as a therapy dog and said that, as she walked him around the room, anyone was welcome to pet him and scratch his ears. Everyone did, relieved at a chance to take their minds off their fears.

With Blue’s head resting on their knees, they told Anne why they were there, waiting for a loved one who, in several cases, had hours more left in surgery. Anne visited, and Blue communed, his mismatched eyes fixed on the person’s. I have no question that he was reading their pain.

I watched in awe, proud as can be of my wife and our dog. And when the two headed off to another waiting room, I was touched to see that many who had been sitting in silent fear were now talking to one another. Dogs are instruments of grace.

Another instrument of grace, begun early in 2009, is our Parkinson’s support group. Eight men, who to that time had been dealing with their illness largely with the sole support of their wives, suddenly had one another.

The result was amazing, moving; and not just for the men. For the care partners, often housebound by their loved ones’ illness, suddenly had company that knew exactly what they were going through. Everyone has been strengthened.

I’ll write more about my own 2009 experiences with Parkinson’s in a few weeks. For now, let me again express Anne’s and my thanks to the support group men and women who are now sharing our pilgrimage with us.

They feel like family.

The added treasured memory, the one that hasn’t been in print, follows on Anne’’s and my annual custom: With our fellow Fly Creekers, we join in the candlelight service at our hamlet’s United Methodist Church. For as long as I’ve known it, this handsome little church has never been limited to its own congregation.

It's Fly Creek’s metropolitan cathedral. The Christmas Eve service there always involves candlelight and wonderful music, and this past year it did so in aces. Pastor Tom Pullyblank had banked the communion table with dozens of unlit candles, seemingly of random colors and sizes. But they weren’t random at all. As the short scripture readings followed one another, candles were lit to represent the Christmas story’s principals. First a pair of candles was lit to symbolize Mary and Joseph, heading for Bethlehem. Then a short, stolid-looking candle took flame to stand for the innkeeper who first refused and then relented and let them camp in his stable.

A clutch of homely candles, lighted in turn, stood for those poor hillside shepherds who were dazzled by heavenly light. And behind them, a couple dozen ivory tapers, tall and graceful, stood for the angels who raised such a heavenly ruckus.

Then, of course, three more candles appeared toward the front, these for Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar.

When the readings were done, the communion table was an island of light in the darkened church. It was then that a final candle was lit, representing the Child new born. And from it, light spread down the aisles and along the pews as each of us touched that candle’s flame to our own tapers. ``Silent Night,’’ sung softly just then, moved us all deeply.

That turned out not to be service’s closing hymn. Instead, we stood and sang carol after carol, accompanied by the church’s organ now handsomely restored.

That service was a feast of music and light.

Thanks, Pastor Tom, for a wondrous Christmas gift. What a blessed end to the year.

READ ABOUT Jim Atwell’s book, From Fly Creek--Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country, at JimAtwell. com