All I Want For Christmas Is…Beer

It’s been a while since I sat down to write a new blog post. The last few weeks have been extremely busy, a good kind of busy, as I struggle to find enough time in the day to work on all of the different projects that I am currently juggling. In some ways I think this is typical for mid-November, one last big push to end the quarter and fiscal year on a positive note. And yes, maybe the work-life balance is made a little more hectic with the start of the holiday season, but I am not complaining, life is good.

At the same time, I am not oblivious to the reality of this strange new post-COVID world that we find ourselves living in, there is nothing normal about this new normal, as I don’t think any of us were prepared for all of the different ways that a global pandemic would dictate and redefine our day-to-day life.

And in this week leading up to Thanksgiving, I do have a lot to be thankful for. My kids have adjusted well to remote learning, and are both doing good in school. My wife, who is a nurse, has so far (knock on wood) been able to stay healthy, when each week it seems like we are learning of another friend or neighbor who has lost someone to COVID. And as for me, well I am doing something I love, and somehow managing to scrape by, when so many other businesses are struggling, or in some extreme cases, have had to fold up their tents.

The last 8+ months have certainly been weird. On one hand isolation has created this buffer to many of the mundane parts of life which either got temporarily suspended, or significantly altered during quarantine. I like my dentist, but I don’t really miss having to go in for regularly scheduled cleanings. Like the old adage says, out of sight, out of mind. But at the same time, this lock down serves as a constant reminder of those things, those other normal everyday experiences that we maybe took for granted, and subsequently now miss doing, because they are things that we are not currently able to enjoy because of the obvious risk to our health and the health of others.

I don’t want to turn this into a moral or political debate about whether to shut-down or open back up., that’s not at all the point of this commentary. Personally, as someone who has a glitchy immune system, a kid who contracted RSV as a toddler (who  we were told could be predisposed for other respiratory ailments later in life,) and a wife who is a healthcare worker, I believe the threat to our public health is real, and should be dealt with accordingly. But I also believe our response needs to be handled in a common-sense manner, to continue as many parts of our society and economy as we can possibly sustain, while still doing what we can to mitigate the risk.

I believe people should be free to make up their own minds, and to a certain extent, do what they want. But unfortunately, we live in a society that ends up having to cater to the lowest common denominator of idiot, because there are still too many people out there who see freedom and common sense as these two mutually exclusive choices, who don’t understand that their actions, their carelessness can negatively impact, potentially even kill others.

This is the last thing I will say about this subject before moving on. 

Regardless of what side of this issue you find yourself standing on, please just do us all the common courtesy of PROPERLY (can’t believe I have to actually say that part) wearing a mask in public, because you might not give two shits whether you get sick, but if you end up at the hospital being cared for by my wife (if the worsening health crisis comes to that,) and she ends up getting infected and bringing Covid home and killing me and my kid, I’m going to be super pissed.

Okay, end of overly dramatic editorial rant.

Some Semblance of Normalcy

Without a doubt, the cumulative effect of this pandemic has really done a number on everyone. Yes, some of us had a nice little reprieve during the summer months, for me personally, being able to spend time at our cabin at Houghton Lake and my family taking a much-needed trip over to Mackinac Island served as a nice change of scenery, if only for a while. But here we are, getting ready to head into another grueling stretch, where things are likely to get worse before they get better, particularly for those area businesses who had started to bounce back when restrictions were lifted this summer, only to have things abruptly shut back down again.

With all of that being said, there were several things that happened over the past couple of weeks that, dare I say, almost made things feel somewhat normal again.

First, a couple weeks back, my buddy Matt and I decided to head up north to  his place in Pentwater as a sort of substitute for  the weekend we would normally spend at Teresa’s family’s property in the U.P. for deer camp, when it had been decided  that our usual gathering of orange camouflage clad beer drinkers and fart makers would have to be canceled this year due to COVID. Even though it was only going to be Matt and I, and both of us had been living relatively sheltered, symptom free lives in the weeks leading up to our trip, we understood and were willing to take the risk, despite the fact that you can never be 100% certain about such things, especially when it comes to a highly contagious, airborne threat (COVID, not the whole fart thing.)

While the trip wasn’t without a fair share of reminders of the ongoing health crisis going on around us, for instance, having to wear masks into the Wishing Well to buy our beer and make our perfunctory purchase of Crown Royal, or having our groceries delivered by Shipt instead of doing our traditional run to the Ludington Meijer to load up on supplies of Nutter Butters and frozen foods, the weekend was strangely ordinary. 

We spent a lot of time outside, hanging out by the fire talking and sipping on beers, or enjoying some stogies as we walked down to the lake. That first night, we binge watched season 1 of the Mandalorian, which was a definite deer camp first. We even  got to watch some honest to god real Big Ten college football, even if both the MSU and U of M games were complete routs. Still, it was nice to get away for a few days, and were of course relieved that nobody got sick, just a little bloated from all of the IPA and cheese dip.

Knapp family picking out a Christmas tree.

That following weekend, when it came time to kick off “our fun, old-fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols” it was a no-brainer as to where we would go. But with the shut-down, we weren’t sure our friends at Charlie’s Christmas Tree Farm in Eaton Rapids would be open for business, so I called to confirm with Charlie before heading out that way.

Even though they weren’t officially opened yet, Charlie said that he would be around getting things set up, and insisted that it wouldn’t be a problem for us to stop by and get our tree. 

After arriving a short while later and saying “Hi” to Charlie, we grabbed a saw and a cart and started walking off into the distance toward Smith Road where he said most of his Fraser firs were planted. We ended up wandering around for a while before settling on a nice, plump specimen that we had passed by at the very beginning of our tree hunt.

The tree that we picked out was this big, heavy son-of-a-birch (really, it was a fir—I just couldn’t resist) that had a trunk that was probably eight to ten inches thick. Carson, who really had his heart set on being the one to cut the tree down, did everything he possibly could before eventually relenting, and handing the honors over to his old man. I took his place on the ground beneath the tree, and It still took me a good 20 minutes of desperate, cursing infused sawing to finally topple the beast, because the weight of the massive trunk kept pinching the saw blade as I attempted to cut through it. 

Knapp family trying to pick up the heavy Christmas tree.

The four of us managed to manhandle the slain giant onto the cart, just barely, and then I set about slowly dragging the heavy load up to the barn. Since Charlie was just getting set up, he didn’t have his regular crew around to help out, which meant that I would be pressed into service to assist with shaking, drilling, and wrapping the tree.

First, Charlie had me  stand on the platform and hold the tree upright on the shaker while him and Teresa started clearing out dead limbs and other debris. I had no way of knowing, but they had found a huge mouse or shrew nest in the tree and were cleaning it out for like ten minutes as I stood there holding on for dear life, getting all of my insides thoroughly shaken up.

By the time they were done and finally switched off the shaker, I couldn’t feel my arms, and probably should have went through concussion protocol based on the Etch-A-Sketch worthy shake job that I was feeling in my brain. But I guess it was all worth it, since their discovery of this mouse or shrew nest likely helped us to avoid our own Christmas Vacation squirrel in the tree type situation, but instead of Snots chasing a squirrel through the house like the scene in the movie, it would have been a mouse or shrew being hunted down by our version of Snots, A.K.A. Zanna (“We call her that because she’s got this sinus condition”)

If that wasn’t enough, when we finally got the tree home and went to drop it onto the spike of our tree stand, it was a good six inches too tall and the entire top of the tree scraped against the ceiling, again reminiscent of another memorable scene from the movie, “Looks great, little full, lot of sap.”

So just to recap – in the two previous weeks I had gone to deer camp (well, sort of) and my family and I were able to uphold our annual tradition of going out to Charlie’s Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas tree, both of which were things I honestly wasn’t sure we’d be able to do this year.

So, the other day when I received a Mug Club membership email from Dimes Brewhouse saying that they would be opened limited hours for pick-up orders, I suggested to Teresa that we stop by and refill our growler and howlers to give our friends Chad and Michelle a little business.

Located in the heart of Dimondale, Dimes Brewhouse is proud to refer to itself as “Your Friendly Village Brewery.” It’s always been a place that my wife Teresa and I like to frequent, whether to meet up with some friends for drinks, check out some live music during one of the Dimes open mic nights, or as a convenient, relaxing destination for one of our impromptu date night get-a-ways. But like most things during COVID, our Dimes consumption had been limited to some pre-ordered cans purchased during one of the previous curbside pick-up times.

So when we arrived at 4:15 p.m., a few minutes before the curbside pick-up hours were supposed to start, we called the tap room to place our order, per the instructions in the email that we had received. To our surprise, we were told that we could sit outside at one of the picnic tables on their patio and enjoy a socially distanced beer while we were waiting for our growler and howlers to be filled, a bonus that we hadn’t at all anticipated.

It was a clear, all be it chilly November afternoon, which turned out to be perfect beer drinking weather. I enjoyed a plastic “Mad Chemist” beaker of my favorite, Equilibrium IPA, while my wife opted for a pour of their Coffee Oatmeal Stout.

We sat and enjoyed our beers and casually conversed as other patrons started arriving to refill their own growlers/howlers or purchase to go cans of beer, some also opting to order pizza from the “Shove It” food truck parked out front.

Then we placed our own to go order, a growler of Equilibrium IPA, and a couple of howlers of their Hazy Nu Nu – New England IPA and Jahwakening – IPA.

Before heading out to Dimes, we called ahead to place a pick-up order from Main Street Pizza, but naturally, in a classic case of getting sucked into a point-of-purchase sale, my wife decided to also order one of the Margarita specialty pizzas from the Shove It food truck. I mean, our family can never say no to the idea of more pizza. Twenty minutes later, we pulled back into the driveway with two pizzas, an order of cheesy bread and a total of three containers of craft beer – not bad for an hour’s worth of work.

So, that brings us back to where I started this blog, talking about what a weird year 2020 has been, and how thankful we should be that we’re all still hanging on. 

Not only does Thanksgiving signal the beginning of the holiday season, it also officially marks the start of the holiday shopping season.

No doubt things will be different this year. Because of COVID, I imagine people will do most of their shopping on-line this year from the relative safety of their homes. Unfortunately, there will be  many more families who simply won’t have the money to do much for Christmas, that’s just the reality of our current situation, a lot of people are really struggling.

But it’s not just us, our area businesses are struggling as well. Our businesses have been doing whatever they can to survive, reconfiguring their public spaces and instituting other safety measures to accommodate social distancing, or temporarily pivoting to pick-up and take-out orders only. But it still may not be enough…

We have already lost too many area businesses to this crisis, local establishments which were forced to permanently shutter, after the loss of customers and revenue  during the spring lock-down caused irreparable damage to their bottom line, forcing them to close their doors forever. And the sad truth is that there will likely be more area businesses who won’t make it through this next phase of the pandemic, they simply won’t be able to sustain themselves if things continue the way they are.

But hope springs eternal, that there is a light at the end of this tunnel, that the promise of a vaccine will finally allow us to begin returning to normal life, whatever that means.

Until then, though, we all need to do our part to keep our area businesses a float.

I know things are tight for a lot of folks, and people don’t have much discretionary income to spend, but please consider doing what you can to shop locally to support our area businesses. They need us right now, and as a community, we need them to still be around after this is all over.

For my part, I’ve always done what I could to support our area businesses, figuring that every little bit helps. When I started Knapp Strategic, I chose to do my business banking with Dart Bank in Holt, partly because they were local, but also because they had stepped up to sponsor Holt-Dimondale Destination Imagination back when I was serving as a parent volunteer. When I needed business cards and Accessiversity 1-pagers designed/printed, I turned to the team at Paper Image, and when we needed a vinyl banner and window decals made for D.I. I reached out to my friend Kirk MacKellar at MacKellar Screenworks.

I am optimistic for a better 2021, when we can once again meet up with folks on the patio at Buddies to enjoy some supreme chicken nachos, or hang out on a Friday night at a crowded Coach’s Pub & Grill to listen to my friend Kraig’s band Double Shot.

I can’t wait for warm summer days punctuated by icy cold Slurpees from 7-Eleven, or early evening tandem bike rides to Sweet Sensations for Reese’s peanut butter cup flurries.

And yes, I look forward to resuming those impromptu date nights with my wife in the Dimes tap room.

So please, let’s all do what we can to help each other out in the short-term.

Maybe surprise the kids next Saturday by pre-ordering a box of donuts from Quality Dairy, or get a couple of large pizzas and breadsticks from Fat Boy’s for the big game, just because.

For those of you who are brave enough to don a mask and actually do some in-person shopping, make it a point to stop into D&M Silkscreening & Embroidery to load up on the latest Holt Ram gear for your Jr. Ram, or consider picking out something for that special someone from Terry’s Jewelry & Gifts, or maybe grab some stocking stuffers for your hubby from Ace Hardware. Then treat yourself to a Carmel Marvel from Biggby, or depending on how stressful the shopping experience was, a Long Island Ice Tea from the Crystal Bar.

And on the way home don’t forget to swing by Dimes Brewhouse to refill your growler, or maybe grab one of those  Dimes hoodies you’ve been wanting, or buy a “Mad Chemist” club membership for your friend or neighbor this Christmas.

So, that’s it, this is my one and only wish for this holiday season.

All I want for Christmas is (for you to buy) beer.