Grandma's Recipe

It's Christmas Eve and the family returns home discussing their favorite part of the church services. Grandma is visiting but there is no masking the tension between parents Gina and Brent. They can't seem to agree on anything-should the kids open gifts tonight? Can they have some eggnog? Left alone when Brent takes the kids to the kitchen, Grandma tells her daughter she's noticed "that look" in her eyes and prods her until she's willing to open up. Gina confides that she and Brent are "a mess" and counseling hasn't helped. Grandma tries to console her daughter but Gina dismisses her perspective, "You live 600 miles away, you have no idea." But Grandma proceeds to enlighten her daughter about a time in her own life when she hated her own marriage. In a non-simplistic way, she tells Gina that there is hope; through determination and endurance and prayer things turned around and "the day your father died was the day my best friend died." When Brent and the kids return to the living room, Gina's suggestion that maybe Dad was right about opening a gift tonight offers a glimmer of hope during the closing eggnog toast to a merry Christmas.