Editor’s note: I wrote this story a few years ago when I first started my other blog. I wanted to update it and re-post it to honor the man it is about, Fort Worth’s own Karl King. That’s a picture of him at the left on his 16th birthday in 1940. When I wrote the story, Karl had already passed away, but I didn’t find out until earlier this year. Please take a moment to read it to remember something about the spirit of the man and the spirit of Christmas.

Christmas stories are much like the day itself – filled with magic and possibility but ultimately a bit of a letdown. As a child you wait the whole year as those December days to drag by, your anticipation rises until you feel like you will burst by Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas Day, there’s that feeling of … well, not emptiness, but more of “Is that it?”

Most Christmas stories are the same way. Unlike old George Bailey or Ebenezer Scrooge, most of us don’t experience a Christmas epiphany that leaves us glad to be alive and thankful for our time here in this life.

However, there is one story I know that captures this.

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Earlier this month I conducted Mass in celebration of Winter and specially crafted winter and Christmas beers. A few parishioners gathered here at the Abbey for a blind taste test.

I went to my local purveyor of fine alcoholic beverages and selected a random assortment of winter and Christmas-themed beers, pictured below.

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