A Wonderful Life

On Sunday (Dec. 29), Kathleen’s daughter, Kristin, came to visit. Until she arrived, it felt as if something was missing from our holiday season. We spend some time every Christmas with her and her husband, Kevin, and this move to Wisconsin threatened a long-running streak. Unfortunately, Kevin was ill, so she flew in alone. We made the best of it, however, had a great time, watched a lot of football, and Kristin was able to spend some quality time with her niece and nephew.

The grandkids were a big part of the reason we moved up here, so being with them on the holidays was especially rewarding. On Christmas morning, I was terribly sick, but Kathleen pulled on her bathrobe and drove down the street to watch them open presents. Later that afternoon, I rallied long enough to spend an hour with them while we exchanged our presents. Six-year-old Lucas is probably at the peak of the childlike wonder I associate with Christmas. You could give that kid an empty shoebox, and he would squeal with delight, saying, “How did you know this is what I wanted! My old shoebox has a rip in it, so this is perfect!” We also played a spirited game of Pictionary with the kids. Abigail (nine years old) is quite good at drawing and guessing. What Lucas lacks in artistic talent, he makes up for with enthusiasm and creative thought. The night we played the game, we had had the kids staying with us for the day while their parents were at work. We also had our contractor over for an hour or two while we selected fixtures, etc. for a bathroom remodeling job. While we were upstairs looking at faucets and tile, the kids were downstairs watching Christmas movies and gorging on a stash of Halloween candy they had left at our house. When we went to dinner, perhaps inspired by Wil Farrell’s Elf character, they had pancakes and waffles smothered in syrup, ice cream, and whipped cream. In short, by the time we played the game, they were experiencing the mother of all sugar highs. We told Luke to just yell out the answer when he thought he recognized the picture, but he took it to extremes, racing through a stream-of-consciousness list of items that had us holding our sides with laughter. At one point, Abigail started by drawing a straight line or two. Lucas began spewing guesses at a rapid rate, sounding something like, “Hercules! A sunny day! A bicycle! Garfield the Cat! A tree!” The kids were still wired and bouncing off of the walls when we made a strategic exit. That’s the beauty of being grandparents.

Now to the title of this entry. On Monday, we took Kristin to the Nutty Squirrel to experience the Meat Raffle. The Gators were playing in a bowl game, so we had beer, football, and the chance of winning frozen meat—it was the best of all possible worlds. Almost immediately, I won something for the first time. I selected a T-bone steak that weighed in at over one-and-a-half pounds. A short while later, Kathleen was called and she selected another T-bone. Now the only suspense centered on Kristin.

It had been a day of constant snowfall. I had shoveled our driveway every time a new 3 inches or so of fresh snow came down—three times in all. Then, before we left for the bar, I had to shovel again to remove the 2-feet-deep pile of the while stuff that had been plowed up in front of our drive. Because of all of the snow, the crowd at the Squirrel was thin. Thus, we thought Kristin had a good chance of winning meat of her own. Just then, we saw a familiar face walking toward our table (You have to love the way this happens in a small town). Our son Ben had been next door at Freeman’s Drug Store. Freeman’s is an old-fashioned, mom-and-pop drug store reminiscent of Gower’s store at which a young George Bailey worked in It’s a Wonderful Life. Ben had been picking up a prescription next door when he happened to glance into the window at the Nutty Squirrel and saw our festive group celebrating our meat winnings. He joined us for a beer. Then Kristin’s name was called. She selected a 7 ½ pound pork roast that had been eschewed by the college students who were probably mystified about how to cook such a massive piece of meat.

By this point, all of us were winners on a number of levels, so we headed for the door with ten pounds of frozen meat. At we walked out onto Main Street, the snow was still falling heavily. The fluffy white powder was illuminated by the Christmas lights still decorating the trees up and down the town’s primary road. I swear I could see George Bailey running down the street yelling in a scratchy, Jimmy Stewart voice, “Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old building and loan!” I felt like the richest man in town.

It was a magical moment and a fitting end to a great and eventful 2019 for us. I hope everyone has a wonderful 2020.