There are only three houses on McDougal Lake, and only two of them are lit up for the Holiday Season.
There is a house roughly in between these two, but it is primarily a summer house, and its people have their Christmas in Boston. And then there are houses on the way to the lake, houses on McDougal Lake Road that are lit, but only in the most traditional sort of of way.
There are no blinking lights or styrofoam snowmen to be seen anywhere in the vicinity of the lake, and not that many multi-colored lights either. There are mostly white lights and blue, Christmas wreaths and red ribbons, and the occasional split-rail fence wrapped in pine branches woven around the posts.
Imagine, then our surprise as we drove home one cold night from a Christmas Eve service and saw, across the lake, our house, apparently flanked by an unknown dwelling blinking out Christmas joy from all of its windows. The light fairly bounced off the frozen lake.
“Good Lord,” said my wife. “Can that be Rick up here in weather like this?”
“If it is,” said I, “he’s freezing his tookus, because that’s a cold house in October.”
Minutes later, we pulled off our long driveway, which branches over to Rick’s house. Smoke was indeed billowing from the chimney. The house was dark, except for the white lights blinking in the picture windows, but I walked to the door nonetheless.
I knocked. “Rick?” I asked, not sure of the answer.
Immediately, the door was opened by a man dressed like a lumberjack. It was Rick.
“Merry Christmas!” he called out. “Come on in!”
I signaled to my wife in the car, and we walked into a house that was only marginally warmer than the outdoors. “Rick,” my wife asked, “what in the world are you doing up here? Is Daphne here with you?”
“No,” he said cheerfully, “it’s just me. It looks like this is our last Christmas on the lake, so I thought I’d come up and see what it looks like to begin with. Never spent Christmas here before, and we’re selling the house in the spring.”
My wife and I tried to absorb both of these concepts at once, but could only look at him and wonder if he would survive the experience. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, reading our faces, “I’m dressed for it.”
We stayed and talked and reminisced and told how much we’s miss each other. We drank brandies by the fire until my wife and I were certain we were about to freeze solid.
We offered him one of our guest rooms, but he was determined to stay in his house by the lake for his Christmas. It was magic, he said, and the magic would keep him warm.
The magic did. We saw him briefly late Christmas day before he headed back to Boston, still dressed like a lumberjack. He took his lights home, but with him took none of the magic of that particular lake, that particular Christmas.
It was somehow magical all the more, simply to realize what it meant to someone who wouldn’t ever have it again.
And so, at this time, we send greetings and deep wishes from all of us at this special place. We send them in hopes of fine Holidays for all of you and just possibly, the most magical of New Years.