Tis the season

There was a small commotion in the kitchen as Mr. Hall rearranged the jars in the refrigerator. “This can’t be all the cherries left; some one must have been helping themselves to a little snack…” Mrs. Hall checked the thermometer and felt the bite in the air. Wintery weather and weekday Manhattans oft times go hand in hand at the Hall. “I should be flying the Gulfstream down to Florida about now,” he grumbled. There are those poor souls who do not suffer the change in seasons happily and Mr. H. is one of them.
One of the problems is Mrs. H. is invariably so upbeat about the whole thing. “But it’s beautiful in the city right now!” she would argue as she dragged him downtown. “The tree in the Clinton Square is all aglow and the Niagara Mohawk building never looked more lovely.” Mr. Hall scowled and muttered under his breath each time he maneuvered the big black car into a tiny parking space.
Tuesday was a local wine tasting. It was in a charming old warehouse, adorned with well worn toys and board games, in the old district where Mr. Hall used to drive ambulance when he first came to Syracuse. The city is experimenting with new ways to induce people to come downtown and to that end, they were sponsoring a series of invites to local businesses. Free wine samples are always welcome, but Mr. H. remained largely unmoved.
Thursday Mr. Hall attended his first-ever Twitter mixer. Mrs. Hall is an avid fan of the web service “Twitter” and they were both anxious to match the faces with the lively correspondents they had come to know so well. (Mr. H. readily confesses he’s not yet fluent in the mysteries of Twitter, but he had to admit it was an interesting group.) Despite the usual grumblings on the way home, Mrs. Hall could recall seeing the vestiges of actual enjoyment flickering oh-so-briefly across his face, especially when she caught him devouring some cupcake samples from a local bakery.
But the real gleam of the season finally came over the weekend. With the help of Mistress Colleen and Master Ian, the trees came out of storage, the lights and the pine boughs and wreaths appeared and last of all, the mascots of Penguin Hall, Beau and Ty, were lovingly arranged in their place of honor on the front porch. The Weather Gods and the calendar at long last made peace with each other, and for the first time all season, snowflakes spun and danced like the inside of a snowglobe, all over Marcellus. Mr. Hall sat back contentedly in his chair and watched his favorite football team destroy their opponents. He sighed, sipped a fresh Manhattan (made with two cherries, just the way he likes it) and decided all was right, at least momentarily, with the world.