One winter in the very early 80's was one of the last of the big family get-togethers for Christmas. Siblings from afar were attending. Cousins, aunts, and uncles were to make appearances. However, this was one of the coldest Christmases I can remember, to add some drama. And this was Wisconsin.
That Christmas Eve, 1982, reached -31 degrees, with a wind chill pushing 70 below. The floorboards frosted on the INSIDE of the house. We feared glass cracking, and the furnace pretty much ran around the clock. Nonetheless, everyone made it safely, and the house was full of beating hearts overnight for safety's sake. And I'm not gonna lie, it felt even more like Christmas as we were all snug in some form of our beds.
That year, on December 1st, Ziggy's Gift aired on ABC. I remember myself as a child trying to hang desperately on to the holiday spirit that I felt was slipping away, due to life's events over the previous several years. Chuckle all you want, but an exceptionally moving animated television special was actually a bit of a lift. Especially the program's story, which can be felt by those of all ages.
If you don't believe me, the show won a damn Emmy the following year for Outstanding Animated Program. Ziggy, Tom Wilson's creation, becomes a street Santa, and a good one, among the crooked without uttering a word. Even at 11 years old, I remember getting teary-eyed at the end, in spite of myself.
I guess for a year where family and friends gathered whole-heartedly for one of the last times (There were a couple others; I remember a particularly touching holiday in Wausau, circa 1988) this little program was apropos. Still reaching for elements of life that were enriching after those several years of electrified strife, I found a little Maraschino cherry to top off the sundae of what was a pretty good year for Christmas (It was a year where I really needed it to be a good one) in that Ziggy special.
It was a good Christmas despite temperatures from some kind of Siberian Hell as well, a good Christmas against all odds.
And who would think that Maraschino cherry would be a one-panel newspaper comic character, and a down-to-earth holiday adventure on prime time television.
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