A bright red bow and harness bells tied on the horse, Donna, Stu, and I set out in their cart to greet our neighbors and bring in the New Year. "Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh," we sang, a sleeping bag draped across our laps and tucked around our knees, with Emily's legs prancing, her hooves tapping the rhythm on the ice-covered gravel road. The horse loved the task. With Emily we didn't have to worry about a cold radiator. She had to be held back from a gallop, her mane flopping and fluttering in the wind. Mason jars full of preserves rattled on the cart floor, and brightly wrapped boxes of goose and duck eggs careened into one another as we rounded the corner and headed south toward the Amish General Store and the extended family who minded it.

"If we bring our neighbors gifts every year on New Year's Day," Donna said, "they'll think that's our custom." Tall and certain, Donna sat in the front seat of the two-seater cart. Part Native American, her black hair streaked with silvery gray and pulled back from her high, broad forehead and straight nose, she had the presence of one who knew how to invent ritual.