Tag: holidays

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Branching Out

Pinch, pull, twist. Pinch, pull, twist.

It sounds like the world’s strangest football chant. Or maybe a post-Thanksgiving exercise routine. (“And PULL and TWIST … c’mon, burn off that stuffing!”) Both wrong, although the second one’s close.

Namely, this was the welcoming ceremony for our new Christmas tree. An exercise in focus, patience and tedium second only to being a Colorado Rockies fan.

Perhaps I should explain.

I’ve been part of the Fake Tree Faction since childhood, when my folks decided that cleaning up pine needles (and dealing with pets who found the ones they missed) was not how they wanted to spend a significant fraction of December and January. The plastic pine they purchased – say THAT five times fast! – became part of family legend. That was partly because it also became a family journal, with each of us writing a short note about the year gone by as we unpacked the tree each winter.

So when Heather and I struck out on our own, a false fir was de rigueur. For a while, it became a pre-lit tree, with the noble intention of saving our none-too-good spinal columns from having to twist a strand of lights from top to bottom. But of course, a pre-lit tree has its own distinct evolutionary pattern:

  • Stage 1: “Oh, how beautiful!”
  • Stage 2: “Honey, I think some of the lights are out.”
  • Stage 3: “Honey! I think some of the lights are actually ON!”

After dealing with too many Stage 3 situations, we surrendered and bought an unlit pine this year. One that came with a warning that we’d need to spend some setup time to make it look right.

Boy, were they NOT kidding.

The branches on each level looked like sheaves of wheat or maybe rolled-up newspapers, tightly bunched around a central limb. Transforming it from “greenish hat-rack” to “fully-formed pine” would require shaping each branch – namely, by pinching the tip of a smaller sub-branch, pulling it free of the mass and then twisting it in the direction you wanted it to go.

Pinch, pull, twist. Over and over. For at least 20 to 30 minutes that felt like an entire presidential administration.

Remember what I said about preventing back pain? Don’t.

As so often happens, the result was worth the effort. When fully fluffed out, the tree stood tall and proud, a sentinel of the season. Especially that part of it called hope.

We use that word a lot this time of year without really thinking about what it needs. It’s not the magical expectation that a tree will leap to life from the box as soon as you cut the tape free. It’s knowing where you want to be and then putting in the effort to get there, no matter how frustrating or difficult it may become.

Hope starts with a vision. But it doesn’t end there. Real hope stays for the long haul, motivating and pushing until you cross the finish line. It’s the knowledge that “You can do this!”, not the illusion that “This will be easy to do!”

This season of the year is often about a culmination of hope, a promise that after a long darkness, light still comes. The waiting and endurance are still real. But so is the glimmer that waits at the end, shining in darkened streets.

Remember that. Hold on. Keep the vision alive and work to make it real.

And if your vision includes a simpler way to shape a plastic pine, I’ll be sending you an invitation to visit for the holidays next year.

Fir sure.

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A Bite of Tradition

At this time of gratitude, I am perhaps most thankful that I don’t have to write a Turkeybiter.

Unless you have friends or family around the area of Emporia, Kansas, you probably haven’t heard the word before. Like lightsabers in “Star Wars,” Turkeybiters are a vestige of a more civilized time – short, simple notes in the local paper about how local families were spending their Thanksgiving. Usually, it’d be something along the lines of:

“Sally Johnson is gathering family from seven states for the Thanksgiving feast, which includes turkey, cornbread and Aunt Willie’s Buffalo-Squid Surprise that she’s made for 37 years. Annual traditions include board games, bad football and keeping Uncle Matthew from talking politics again.”

You get the idea.

Some people would mail them in. Sometimes teachers would assign them for homework. But mostly, the newspaper staff had to go out and hunt down a certain quota themselves. Our regular sources learned to quickly duck for cover when they saw an intrepid reporter approaching with a Turkeybiter gleam in their eye. After all, even the most damaging investigative piece would eventually come and go, but chatting even once in November would mark you as a potential Turkeybiter every single Thanksgiving.

Which, of course, made them a perfect celebration of the holiday. Like the Thanksgiving feast itself, they were:

  1. A lot of work
  2. Grumbled about constantly as the work went on
  3. Seriously appreciated as a special tradition once everything was ready to serve

And they were. People would thank us for carrying on the old-time hometown tradition. Some readers would get a glow from seeing the news of their neighbors. Some reporters would get a glow from seeing column inches that they didn’t have to worry about filling when everyone was out of town. Everybody got a win.

Odd? Sure. But somehow it worked.

And that’s also a perfect description of Thanksgiving.

It’s a strange little holiday, isn’t it? It sits tucked away in a corner like a guest at the kids’ table, apart from the gaudier Halloween and Christmas festivities. Oh, long ago in the early 20th century, it used to be a time for masks and costumes as well (seriously!). But these days, the weirdest things associated with the holiday are “Alice’s Restaurant,” the WKRP turkey drop, and the fact that Detroit Lions football is actually considered worth watching.

It’s quiet. Respectable, even. No decor on the house or giant pilgrims in the yard, just  a lot of work that’s mostly seen by close friends and family. (Unless you’re one of the many who reaches out to the forgotten on Thanksgiving, of course.)

It doesn’t shout. And that’s OK.

In a country that’s so often extroverted, it’s OK to have a time about turning inward and considering gratitude.

At a time of year when the very landscape seems to become a little quieter, it’s OK to have a time that doesn’t need its own  Mariah Carey anthem.

It’s an unheralded celebration that can feel exhausting, even burdensome in the days leading up to it. But oh-so-special when the moment finally arrives.

I hope you get to touch that quiet appreciation this year. To lift someone up or be lifted in turn. To share in a spirit of thankfulness that deserves to last beyond a November afternoon.

Celebrate. Enjoy. Remember.

And if you feel like sharing those memories in a Turkeybiter, I know just the editor to talk to.

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Waiting for the Light

“When are we going?”

“Not quite yet, Missy.”

That’s not an unusual exchange in our house at most times. Missy, after all, is one of the world’s quiet extroverts – a person of few words (due to her developmental disability) who loves to be around people. Even the most mundane errand often sprouts an eager tagalong, even if there’s barely time to smile at the checkout clerk.

But as the evenings get longer and the air gets colder, the question becomes The Question. When she asks after dark, Missy’s not looking for crowds.

She’s looking for lights.

And these days, she’s not alone.

If you regularly stop by this column, you may know that Missy and I make a series of holiday light runs across all of Longmont through the holiday season. And if you haven’t dropped in from Andromeda, you know the season for lights and other holiday decor keeps getting earlier and earlier.

Long, long ago, the excitement started on Christmas Eve, kicking off the celebrated “twelve days of Christmas.” In fact, it was considered bad luck to decorate any earlier than Dec. 24.

A few generations ago, that shifted to Thanksgiving. After a day of good turkey and bad football, it was time to dig out the ladder and start hanging up the roof lights … once you’d shaken off the exhaustion of consuming 10,000 calories in one go, of course.

These days, and especially since the pandemic, it seemed to be fair game any time after Halloween. Our own family’s earliest record is the day after Veterans Day (attention must be paid) but some homes seem to have the clock-change motto of “Spring Forward, Fall Back Into a Blaze of Glory.”

it’s not hard to guess why. In times that feel dark – both literally and metaphorically – it’s natural to reach for all the light we can get. Some studies have even shown that early decorating can lift spirits, tapping into a reservoir of nostalgic feelings.

For myself, I worry a little bit about making the magical mundane. When something special becomes ubiquitous, it risks losing some of its wonder. We start to tune out what’s always there, and it would be a shame to consign something so brilliant to the realm of the ordinary.

But here’s the thing: it’s not a hard boundary. Each of us knows what our heart needs. And if reaching for a strand of colored lights brings you joy at a moment you need it, I’m not going to be the Christmas cop. (Likewise, if reaching for NO lights keeps your soul content, that’s OK, too.)

We all push back the shadows however we can. And anytime we can strengthen joy or ease pain, we’ve made the world a little better – regardless of the season.

That doesn’t require lights on the house. Just lights in the heart, as often as we can kindle them.

So best wishes to you, whether your own seasonal colors are spread across the front lawn or tightly packed in cardboard. Whatever you celebrate, however you do it, may it give you the strength and reassurance you need in the time ahead.

And in a couple of weeks, when Missy and I hit the road at last, we’ll make sure to wave as we go by.

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A Moment to Remember

The moment had finally come.

The last shot … blocked. The last second … elapsed. At last the long wait was over. The Denver Nuggets would walk off the floor for the first time as Western Conference Champions, punching their first-ever ticket to the NBA Finals.

It was time for the nation to see Denver’s joy, to see the excitement, to see … two long minutes of LeBron James heading for the Lakers locker room in defeat?

Sigh. Sometimes even when you win, you can’t win.

I shouldn’t be surprised. As a nation – maybe even as a species – we’re not that good at focusing our attention where it belongs.

After all, look at our current holiday.

We often get caught up in the trappings of a holiday and Memorial Day is no exception. In fact, with Memorial Day, we get layers upon layers of misunderstanding and distraction. An alien looking at our practices and reading our subconscious minds might conclude that the day is:

  • “The first day of summer! Ok, that’s really in June, but still …”
  • “A chance to pull out the new grill and show Jake and Mary how you really cook a steak!”
  • “The first three-day weekend we’ve had in way too long. Woohoo!”
  • “Uh … something about thanking soldiers for their service. Right?”

None of them hit the bullseye. Even that last one. Not that it’s ever inappropriate, but if you want to tie that “thank you” to an actual holiday, Veterans Day in November is the one you’re looking for.

Memorial Day is … well, what it says. The pause to remember. The moment of honor for the defenders no longer here. It’s not the passing parade but the sudden silence.

And as such, it draws on a whole bunch of qualities that we’re really not that good at.

A moment to pause? These days, our world insists that every moment be filled, leaving no time to think about anything except what’s right in front of you.

Remembering the dead? So many of us go out of our way to avoid thinking about death at all, like a student who thinks graduation is an elective and that they can stay in school forever.

Silence? Every moment of our lives seems to have a soundtrack. Stillness is something foreign, a state that has to be sought out … if we even remember it exists at all.

In short, Memorial Day forces us to make a lot of choices that don’t come naturally to us. To break out of our expectations. To see and be, not just react.

There’s nothing wrong with the rest of it. I like a good steak, too, after all. But if we focus on the fun and forget the core, we’ve missed the point as surely as any ESPN announcer.

That’s not where any of us should want to be.

So this year, take a moment to hold up those who can no longer hear our thanks. The ones who never came marching home again.

Remember to stop. Be still. Reflect.

Our choice costs nothing. Theirs cost everything.

The moment has come. And we’ve seen how grating it can be when a champion is ignored.

So take some time now to give our own champions their due.

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To the Letter

This December, Missy and I have been reading someone else’s mail. And it’s been magical.

“Ok, Missy, are you ready for Father Christmas?”

The eager smile as I opened the book said it all.

Every year, our bedtime reading with Missy takes in at least one holiday classic. We’ve done “The Story of Holly and Ivy,” “How The Grinch Stole Christmas!” and even “A Christmas Carol.” But given how much Missy enjoys magical stories, I’m kind of surprised it took us this look to reach for “Letters From Father Christmas.”

If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s a slim volume by J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes, the Hobbit guy. His children, like many, wrote letters to Father Christmas each year … and in their case, Father Christmas wrote them back. The resulting correspondence from the North Pole (which included hand-drawn pictures) stretched from the 1920s until the early 1940s, when the last of the four young Tolkiens finally grew beyond “stocking age.”

During that period, they could count on getting all the latest news. One year might be the humorous misadventures of what the well-meaning North Polar Bear had broken THIS year. Another might tell of an attempt by goblins to raid the storehouses. And always, whether it was a quick note or a long tale, there’d be the sense of so much going on behind the scenes.

But the collection is also an indirect chronicle of the family itself. Each Father Christmas letter gives a glimpse of the children at the other end: the teddy bear collection, the railroad enthusiasm, the year one child tried sending Father Christmas a telegram in the off-season.  And as they grow, it’s clear that the gifts of love and wonder given by the letters lasted far beyond the holiday.

That’s something worth recapturing now.

I know. By this time of year, most of us are pretty exhausted. And lately, when New Year’s starts to appear on the horizon, we greet it with more resignation than excitement. If Dec. 31 had a motto for the 2020s, it would probably be “Well, thank goodness THAT one’s over.”

But long after candles have been snuffed, trees have come down and lights packed away, we still have the gift of each other. And we have to give it well, whatever the time of year.

We give it to neighbors when we help each other face the challenges of the world, whether it’s a snowstorm, a pandemic, or just a chore that’s too much for one person to do alone.

We give it to friends when we celebrate their joys and ease their trials, even if all we can do is listen and understand.

And yes, we give it to our children when we help them grow with an open heart and a spirit of curiosity and wonder. That, most of all, ensures the gift will continue.

It doesn’t require handwritten letters with a North Pole postmark (though I suppose it never hurts). Even in Tolkien’s day, that was just the gift-wrapping.  It starts with awareness – noticing other people, remembering that they matter, and then treating them that way.

Sounds simple, I know. But when we remember to do it, it has the power of a child receiving Father Christmas’s personal attention: a reminder that they’re seen, they’re important and they’re cared for.

So don’t let that spirit stop at Jan. 1. Keep being the gift.

After all it’s always a good time to be living in the present.

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A Partridge in a WHAT?

I have a lot of sympathy for “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

Well, not so much the song itself, unless it’s sung by John Denver and a horde of Muppets. But the guy who keeps sending all this stuff – flocks of birds, hired entertainers, maybe a bit of jewelry – gets an understanding nod of the head for me.

You see, he clearly has no idea what his true love wants for Christmas. But he’s bound and determined to keep trying until he gets it right.

I think most of us would call that “the holidays as usual.”

Even in the age of Amazon, venturing into the holiday season seems to require the strategic acumen of a general, the adaptability of Star Trek’s Borg and the courage of a quarterback facing half a ton of charging linebackers. After a while, the process begins to feel like one of those middle-school math problems: “So if part 2 of your gift is traveling 1000 miles in five days, but part 1 can cover the same distance in four to seven …”

It’s a formula for merry chaos, even when you know each other well. (Witness the year that Heather and I gave each other the same Muppet movie.) And it gets still more challenging when you add kids to the equation.

Heather and I have half-a-dozen nieces and nephews, all but one of whom are older than pre-school but younger than 13. This puts them all firmly in the Danger Zone of gift giving, where safety lies in answering three questions correctly:

  1. What are they interested in now? (As opposed to last year or maybe even last month.)
  2. What do they already have?
  3. What did Grandma and Grandpa already give them before you even saw the list? (Answer: everything.)

A Las Vegas gambler would tremble at those odds.

And yet, we usually navigate the seas pretty well. Part of it comes from a decent memory of what it’s like to be a kid. Still more of it comes from heavy leaning on the Parental Intelligence Agency, reporting out detailed analyses to would-be family Santas since 2010.

But the biggest reason it generally works out is that the best gifts have already been given. Long before Christmas, in fact.

We’ve given sleepovers. And chats. And out-of-state D&D sessions over Zoom. We’ve had the chance to see them learn and grow (sometimes at a distance of hundreds of miles) and for them to know us as more than just names on a package label.

That’s more precious than even five golden rings. After all, the presents you give may come and go (and come again if you didn’t update the Amazon list). But the presence you give lasts.

That’s the love that lights the season. And well beyond.

I hope the 12 Days guy eventually figured that out. I know a lot of my friends and family have. When you’ve given yourself, you’ve given what matters. The packages and presents are just a bonus.

And if those presents include 12 drummers drumming and 11 pipers piping, I sure hope you included some Excedrin, too.  

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Putting the Peaces Together

We shouldn’t have lost Bob McGrath this close to Christmas.

I know. There’s never a good time. But you know what I mean. Big Bird would understand.

If you or your kids grew up watching “Sesame Street,” you know Bob, who passed recently at the age of 90. Part of the adult cast, he was the music teacher with a gentle voice and a kindly manner. Sometimes he’d be introducing the latest “People in Your Neighborhood.” Sometimes you’d see him chatting, both out loud and in sign language, with his character’s deaf girlfriend, Linda.  Once, he famously helped explain the death of store owner Mr. Hooper – as much as anyone could, anyway – to a grief-stricken Big Bird, his own voice shaking as well at the passing of his real-life castmate.

In short, whether in good times or bad, he reflected a spirit of peace. The sort of spirit we celebrate now and really need more of.

I don’t just mean that Bob wasn’t violent. (You never got a lot of that on the Street, anyway.) I don’t even mean that he was quiet and soft-spoken. Peace means more than just “nobody’s fighting.” We’ve all been in uncomfortable situations where nobody’s arguing but nobody feels at ease, carefully keeping their guard up. Many parents know the moment when the kids are behaving with each other, but only because Mom and Dad are watching.

You have peace when you have community. Interconnection. Harmony in the most literal sense of the word: many different voices coming together to make a more beautiful chord. (As a good friend likes to point out, the old Greek word for peace comes from a verb that means “to tie” or “to weave.”)

You have peace when things are as they should be. Not because someone’s sitting on everybody else, but because everyone wants to help make them right. A world where … well, where you truly see the people in your neighborhood.

It’s not always easy. It certainly requires more than just a spirit of “If you don’t make trouble, you won’t get any.” Peace doesn’t do well in isolation. It needs someone to reach out to: to celebrate or console, to make right or support. It can soothe or call for justice, but it doesn’t just walk back into the house and close the door.

In other words, it’s a gift. Maybe one of the most important ones we can give each other, at this time or any other.

Bob’s character spoke to people where they were, whether that required ASL or the ability to connect with a 6-year-old. From what I can tell, the real Bob did exactly the same. People like that matter, especially in a day where so many chasms keep erupting.

And when they leave, that spirit doesn’t have to leave with them. It’s up to us to keep it going and help it spread.

Even when it hurts to remember that missing neighbor.

It’s fitting to end this in his own words, from the Mr. Hooper episode:

“You’re right, Big Bird. It’s … it’s …  it’ll never be the same around here without him. But you know something? We can all be very happy that we had a chance to be with him, and to know him, and to love him a lot when he was here.”

May that be said of all of us.

Peace, everyone.

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Feeling “Blue”

We were on Day 3 of the Rochat Family Holiday Light Tour (“All of Longmont! All the lights! No GPS!”) when a certain song hit the airwaves again.

Now, there are approximately 30,000 ways to musically celebrate in December, all of which will sooner or later come out of a car speaker – probably multiple times. It might be the simplicity of a “Silent Night.” Or the driving pulse of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Or the screams of “NO!” from a thousand drivers as George Michael’s “Last Christmas” warns them that they’ve lost the annual Whamageddon contest.

This was none of the above.

Instead, we were treated to the sort of silliness and sentiment that you can only get in the presence of the King.

“Ah-ah’ll ha-ave a bluuuuuue Christmas without yoooou….”

Yes, the Elvis hit. The one with alll the woo-ee-oos in the background, where the Presley-style croons and stutters go so far over the top that they probably hit Santa’s sleigh on the way back down.

I can’t exactly call it a guilty pleasure. But it never fails to draw a chuckle from me, if not an outright laugh, at the unlikeliest Christmas classic in the canon. (With the possible exception of Alvin and the Chipmunks, but that’s another column for another time.)

You see, Elvis didn’t want to do this song.

I mean, REALLY didn’t want to do this song.

The song had already been a country hit for Ernest Tubb, and Presley wanted to leave it with him. When told he had no choice, Elvis tried to deliberately botch the assignment.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he said to his band and background singers, telling them to get silly, even downright bad, so that no one would be tempted to put it on a single. One-and-done, forget about it.

“When we got through,” background singer Millie Krikham said in an interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame, “we all laughed and said ‘Well, that’s one record that the record company will never release.’”

Oops.

You know the rest. Millions of sales. Tons of airplay. “Blue Christmas” became as much a part of the Elvis legend as “Love Me Tender” or “Jailhouse Rock” – despite, and maybe even because of, the decision to let go and get goofy. Reluctance somehow unlocked delight, even joy.

Whether you love or hate the song, I think that’s something we can all sympathize with.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Those are words of the season for an awful lot of us, aren’t they? Too often, a time that should be about love and humanity becomes a bulldozer, inexorable and overwhelming.

We all still have lives beyond the holidays, after all. And when those lives have been carrying too much, it doesn’t necessarily feel like much of a season. So we go through the motions, not expecting a lot.

But that’s the weird thing about joy. It doesn’t wait for the obvious moments. In fact, its greatest strength is when it lies in ambush, touching the ordinary and making it unforgettable.

That’s the real gift of the season. One as old as the hills. And if we reach out just a little – even if it’s just enough to get through – we give ourselves the chance to open it once again.

I hope it finds you this year. Wherever you need it, however you need it.

After all, the best things often come from out of the blue.  

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In Thy Darth Streets Shineth …

Not long ago, Missy and I sat down to watch a classic holiday movie. Plenty of snow, a family reunion, and of course, a figure with a booming voice who’s recognized worldwide.

Man, “The Empire Strikes Back” never gets old.

Now that everyone’s stopped throwing snowballs at me, perhaps I should explain.

A long time ago, in a living room not so far away, I got Missy hooked on Star Wars. It wasn’t intentional. One quiet Saturday afternoon, I just suddenly found that I had company on the couch, watching blasters and bounty hunters with me. And since Missy goes all in on what she loves (partly from her developmental disability, partly from a naturally enthusiastic personality), it wasn’t long before she started pointing out Darth Vaders and Chewbaccas everywhere we went.

“Look-look-look!”

The best part? It was “Empire” that drew her in.

Now Missy’s not a dark and brooding personality. I mean, she cranks up the stereo to house-rocking levels with dance music and Christmas carols. She would go out every night to see holiday decorations if she could (and some years, we’ve come close). She likes bright colors, bright dresses, bright purses of near-infinite capacity.

And yet the movie that set the hook in her is easily the darkest of George Lucas’s original trilogy. It’s not a happy-ever-after fairy tale like the original “Star Wars” or a redemption story like “Return of the Jedi.” It’s a pure curb-stomp trampling of the good guys from beginning to end: the rebels lose their new base, Leia and Chewie lose Han, Luke loses his hand and his certainty. Even C-3P0, the comic relief, gets blasted to bits before everything’s done.

But the more I think about it, the more it fits. “Empire” is the perfect movie not just for our family Christmas Princess, but for the season in general.

Because first and foremost, it’s a story of hope.

The Empire wins victory after victory. But by the end of the story, the Rebellion’s still there. Nearly all of the major heroes have gotten away, including the one Vader wanted most. The light has dimmed – but as long as it’s still shining, the darkness hasn’t won.

Now come back to this season. The time of year where the nights grow darker – and the lights shine brighter. Maybe for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Yule, or just someone’s own personal persistence. At the darkest times, we shine.

And boy, have we had a lot of darkness to push against lately.

You don’t need me to list all of it. For one thing, I’d need a longer column than this. For another, each of us knows the pains and the strains far too well by now. Violence and death in places that should be safe. Hate and anger driving fractures at a moment when we need everyone’s strength. A world that too often has us under siege, collectively, individually, and even microscopically.

But the light hasn’t gone out yet.

And when any of us add our glow – however flickering it may feel – that light of hope gets just a little stronger.

If that isn’t something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

So light the lights, on the houses and in the hearts. Reach. Listen. Strengthen. Hope. Especially hope. That’s where it begins and how it endures: believing that the light will come and shining your own until it does.

That’s the beauty of the season and everything behind it. So give it a good look.

And if you want to give it a good Lucas too, Missy won’t complain.

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Wrapping Up 2021

With apologies to Paul Simon, there must be 50 ways to wreck your wrapping. And I know them all.

Just cut it too short, Mort.

Tie the tape in a ball, Paul.

Make it crude and uneven, Stephen, and listen to me …

You get the idea.

To be fair, my periodic battles with tape, scissors and brightly colored paper have become more hopeful over the years. With much fussing, cussing and desperate prayer, I can finally produce a package that looks like it was wrapped by a 10-year-old. With a blindfold. In the final car of a roller coaster. Hey, it’s progress!

So yes, I have a signature style. So much so that when the bookstore I worked at offered free gift wrapping at Christmas, I was asked to stay at the register. It seems that at “free,” my wrapping was still overpriced.  

Every year, someone suggests gift bags. Every year, I refuse to surrender. 

And every year, the week after Christmas becomes the most magical time of all.

It’s weird to write that because I’m not a huge New Year’s guy. Even before COVID-19, I didn’t hit the parties. I rarely do resolutions. I definitely stay up ‘til midnight, but I’ve never needed the excuse of Dec. 31 to do that, just a night owl’s instincts.

But in an odd way, that last week of the year is a microcosm of what’s about to come.

Start with Christmas Day. The time leading up to it builds with anticipation, curiosity, even anxiety. The holiday’s offerings lie hidden behind boxes and paper. The presentation may be beautiful or clumsy, but it gives only the broadest hint of what lies ahead.

But come Dec. 26, the wrapping no longer matters. By the time you’ve torn into it, all you remember is what was inside. Over those next few days, anticipation is replaced by experience.

And then we get to unwrap one more gift. The biggest one of all.

We’ve got a whole year ahead of us, wrapped away, out of sight. After the last couple, many of us are hesitant to poke the package. (At least, not without a mask and some Clorox wipes.) Don’t predict, we’re told. Don’t project. Just take a breath, walk ahead carefully, and try not to break anything.

I understand the worries. Heck, I share a lot of them. But  one way or another, the box will open. The bag will be cast aside. And the hopes and fears that we wrapped 2022 in will give way to the reality.

No, we don’t get a receipt. (“Hello, customer service? Someone broke my 2021 in delivery; do you give store credit?”) In the case of this present, we’re both giver and receiver. We have to do the best we can with what we get … and that includes giving the best we have in us to make it better for everyone.

It’s demanding. It’s difficult. And it carries no guarantees. But if we keep at it, we can be the best present that someone else has ever received.

If enough of us do that, then 2022 becomes a gift worth getting, no matter what crises and challenges may lie ahead.

So best wishes to all of you for the New Year. Thanks for visiting here each week. I’ll keep the light on for you.

Assuming I can untangle myself from this wrapping paper first.