I don't holiday well.

Nor do I often use a noun as a verb.

I just don't care for the puffery of any season, be it Christmas. Halloween or Groundhog Day. (I spent too many years waiting for the little rat's prognostication to get something in the day's newspaper.)

I'm but no means a humbug. I just prefer to celebrate each day the same.

Yet this year I come away from the Christmas reason with a heart reeling over all the graciousness of the last week.

Kid remains the center of the last week. She charmed wherever we went, something abetted by my naturally grizzled self. "This is your kid?" friends asked, some assuming there might be another father in a neighboring county.

But no. With enough time, people realized she was a product of mine. We played and improvised together, me setting a straight line, her picking up the punch line and then me taking the tag line. (Clearly, she's taught me the language comedy.) In the midst of otherwise less serious fare, we'd briefly argue over a historical point. I took the side of Alfred Kinsey, she prosecuted him.

She left, too soon, but we had two solid and glorious days together shopping for Northwoods products to feed the other side of her family. We ate well, we drank some as she's newly anointed at age 21.

Friday, I attended a private together at a local watering hole, where the buffet was as long as a bowling alley -- literally. Drinks flowed and I finally realized how many true friends I've made in this short time.

Saturday, friends I didn't have a year ago had me over for a mountains of food and a Packers victory. The Whos in Whoville never ate so well and when the Packers secured victory I thought briefly we should hold hands and sing "Dahoo Dores."

It didn't strike me until this morning, waking groggily, how beautiful it had all been.

My heart might even have grown three sizes so my cardiologist is worried.

And I hope to hold on to that grace through the next year as we come up on the anniversary of COVID.

Peace and grace unto all of you my brothers and sisters.