A much-cherished Christmas gift

This past Christmas, I got a gift I enjoyed more than any oth­er. Not only was it incred­i­bly thought­ful and some­thing I am proud to dis­play in my study, but the sto­ry behind it and the fact that it involved my entire co-habit­ing fam­i­ly make it espe­cial­ly delightful. 

On Christmas morn­ing, I unwrapped the gift from my wife Jen and imme­di­ate­ly began to admire it: a com­mem­o­ra­tive lim­it­ed-edi­tion bot­tle of Muhlenberg bour­bon, “You Got Gold — Celebrating the life and songs of John Prine.” The spir­it was bot­tled in the tiny town of Graham, in Muhlenburg County, just up the road from Paradise. The same Paradise John sang about in his most well-known song of the same name. 

If you know me, you know two of my favorite things are good bour­bon and the late great John Prine. Add to that list the fact that I love to col­lect objects of intrin­sic or sen­ti­men­tal value. 

I knew instant­ly that this would become a cher­ished keep­sake, but I did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly know just how much mean­ing it would hold for me. 

The back of the bot­tle con­tains this explanation:

Thank you for being a part of YOU GOT GOLD 2022. Through a series of musi­cal events by some of the world’s great­est artists, we cel­e­brate the music, life, and lega­cy of John Prine... What made John such a gift was his abil­i­ty to shine a light on the human con­di­tion; often com­i­cal, fre­quent­ly con­found­ing, but always worth the study, John had the abil­i­ty to find the com­mon thread that con­nects us all. 

I had watched the videos from those events sev­er­al times. Maybe you have to be a fan of John’s work to appre­ci­ate just how deeply emo­tion­al all this was for me. 

Back to the gift. The bot­tle is beau­ti­ful, the cause is a good one (The Hello in There Foundation),  and it’s close to my heart because I love good bour­bon, and I loved John Prine. 

(The foun­da­tion’s mis­sion “aims to iden­ti­fy and col­lab­o­rate with indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties to offer sup­port for peo­ple who are mar­gin­al­ized, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against or, for any rea­son, are oth­er­wise for­got­ten.” Its name springs from one of John’s sig­na­ture songs, Hello in There, about con­nect­ing with lone­ly, elder­ly people.) 

But the best part of the gift came when Jen told me the sto­ry behind its acquisition. 

She had seen it adver­tised and knew imme­di­ate­ly it was some­thing I would cher­ish. In our fam­i­ly, we typ­i­cal­ly pick out our own gifts and share our wish lists with one anoth­er. It’s a great way to ensure every­one gets things they tru­ly want and need — but it’s always the thought­ful sur­prise that brings the most delight.

Once Jen decid­ed to pur­chase the gift for me, the first prob­lem arose. We do all our finances joint­ly online, and every trans­ac­tion made by cred­it card is vis­i­ble to both of us. She want­ed this to be a true sur­prise, so she asked our daugh­ter-in-law Amanda to order the gift on her cred­it card and be reim­bursed in cash. Amanda hap­pi­ly agreed, and the order was put in. 

Eventually, my son Tim became Jen’s sec­ond accom­plice by pure acci­dent. On the day the pack­age was to be deliv­ered, he was the only one at home. Amanda assumed Tim would be there when the pack­age arrived and was count­ing on that since, by law, an adult must be home to receive any ship­ment of alcohol. 

So Amanda was sur­prised when she got a noti­fi­ca­tion that the deliv­ery dri­ver had unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed the deliv­ery. Panicking, she called Tim, only to learn that he had just left the house to run an errand. But he imme­di­ate­ly jumped into action. He was still in the neigh­bor­hood, and he drove around until he found the deliv­ery truck. He approached the dri­ver, explained that he was a res­i­dent of the home where a pack­age was just missed and con­vinced the dri­ver he was the legit­i­mate recipient. 

Tim tri­umphant­ly brought home the pack­age, and the three of them shared this won­der­ful secret until Christmas morn­ing when they relat­ed all this to me as I sat admir­ing my gift. It was a beau­ti­ful moment of fam­i­ly bond­ing that we all shared.

As I sat the bot­tle down on the side table, Tim asked, “So, Dad, are you going to open it or keep it sealed up?” 

I quick­ly replied, “No, this bot­tle will remain sealed and in the cab­i­net in my study with all my oth­er cher­ished collectibles.”

And one day, when I’ve joined John Prine in that great wher­ev­er, maybe I’ll share a Handsome Johnny cock­tail with him and relate to him this sto­ry. And Tim — also a huge fan of John’s music — will inher­it this prized pos­ses­sion of his dad’s that he helped make happen. 

Useful, prac­ti­cal gifts have much util­i­ty. But gifts rich with mean­ing to the giv­er and the gif­tee are the ones that will be around for many years, pro­vid­ing more enjoy­ment with each pass­ing year.