He confounds the stereotype of a starving artist. Formally educated and with an impressive career at just over 30, Brian Ditchfield is a dynamo in camouflage, a person whose intellectual heft is couched in a personality free from pretension or posturing. He is a quiet leader among his peers in theatre and the dramatic arts.

Walking around downtown Edgartown in February, it is easy to discover just how many ways there are to say, “We’re closed.”

There is the restrained: “Closed. See you in May.” The effusive, “We are EXCITED to be reopening on Main Street this Spring 2009!” The amicable: “Have a great winter,” and the downright cryptic: “Closed . . . Tea leaf reading is available by appointment.”

C harles Schulz never much liked Valentine’s Day, and neither did his fictional creation Charlie Brown. As Charlie Brown says, it is the day that reminds us that, “nothing echoes like the sound of an empty mailbox.”

When Mr. Schulz died on this day nine years ago, bringing an end to the 50-year run of his supremely popular comic strip, Peanuts, it was exactly one day before he would ever have to witness another red paper doily or another message candy heart.

Again and again, it seems, Christmas brings us face to face with the same old question. Where does a rabidly materialistic society like our own get off celebrating the man who taught poverty by reveling in a superfluity of consumer goods? Perhaps they didn’t juggle exactly the same paradox, but the monks of 12th century England labored over the same vexing question of how best to reconcile Christian piety with the pull of earthly delights.