I heard a radio commercial this morning. “The Holidays are for making memories with friends and family”. I believe the commercial was for AT&T, but I wasn’t really paying attention after I heard that initial statement. That’s because that statement that most would take as being acceptable and perhaps even warm, is objectively false. I may have been the only person to hear that message and take offense to it, but that’s because I live in a world where we have plenty of opportunity to make memories with friends and family, and the Holidays isn’t one of them.
Am I supposed to fondly remember my grandfather stumbling into a support pole in my uncle’s basement? Ah, Christmas! Or do I need to remember my father falling asleep in his chair while reruns of A Christmas Story play on TNT? Or do I cast my memory back to sitting on my Grandma May’s green patterned carpet while watching the Bulls play the Lakers on Christmas Day? These are not the memories I will hold dear.
I’d rather remember my Grandpa Curry holding up a largemouth bass on the front lawn of my parent’s house. Smiling with his catch, holding the bass high for all to see, even though through this memory I now see that the bass was merely 14″ and was hardly a trophy at all, let alone a legal fish to keep and eat. I’d rather remember the rare occasion when my Grandma May would sit on the pier with her large sunglasses and marvel at the scenery. How different it was for her than the farm in Princeton, and how rare it was for me to see her in a place that was at once so familiar to me and unfamiliar to her. That’s where I differ from the ad writers for AT&T. I don’t make memories on Christmas, I recount the memories that were made at the lake.
For now, a most Merry Christmas to you and your family. A Happy Hanukkah if that’s the applicable celebration. I’m supremely grateful that you read this gibberish as often as you do, and even more grateful to those buyers and sellers who trust me with their Lake Geneva real estate decisions. This weekend you can try to make memories with your friends and family, and if you don’t have a lake house, I suppose that’s really your only option. But if you have a lake house, then use this weekend to remember the fantastic times you had last summer, and anxiously anticipate the better lake times that are yet to come. I’ll be off Friday and Monday, back next Wednesday. Starting in January, I’ll recap each individual market segment with a year end review, so we both have that to look forward to. Have a wonderful weekend.