Holiday Blues #3

Summary

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RISK! Podcast – Holiday Blues #3

Host: Kevin Allison
Episode Date: January 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This “Holiday Blues #3” episode from RISK! delves into the raw, poignant, and bittersweet sides of the holiday season. Host Kevin Allison introduces two deeply personal, true stories reflecting themes of revenge, loss, resilience, and the complex familial emotions that surface at Christmastime. Through these stories—one laced with humor and karmic justice, the other with longing, survival, and gratitude—the episode explores how holiday expectations can collide with harsh realities, but also how unexpected moments of connection and kindness can shine through.

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Story 1: “Santa’s Revenge” by Michael J. Bennett

[02:48–11:43]

Key Points & Insights

• Rural Roots, Unusual Teachers:
  Michael grew up in a tiny Idaho town where his teachers were often the district’s last resort hires, including a coach named Tom who relentlessly targeted him.

  “We had some teachers that had burned their bridges in other school districts. They might have been on a sex offender list, and the only path they had left for teaching was in our school district.” [02:56]

• Unorthodox Education:
  Tom barely taught history and had a farcical method for final exams:

  “If you’re an A student, go ahead and get everything right. If you’re a B student, miss a couple. If you’re a C student, miss four or five.” [03:51]

• Aftermath of a Bad Education:
  Michael realized after graduating and failing at college that his foundational education was lacking due to Tom.

• Becoming Santa—and Finding an Opportunity:
  Years later, while working as a mall Santa, Michael encountered Tom, now with his young son, Billy, in the Christmas queue.

  “I sat there on the chair behind that white scratchy beard… and I looked that teacher in the eyes, and I realized he has no idea who I am.” [07:20]

• Karmic Holiday “Gift”:
  Instead of the typical Santa gentle lecture, Michael showers Billy with grand promises—lavish presents, a pony named Buttons, a fleet of toys—knowing Tom will have to explain the disappointment.

  “Santa’s gonna bring you a pony named Buttons for Christmas.” [08:50]

  “You stay out of this, Tom… Your behavior in your classroom has been entirely unacceptable. This is between me and Billy, so you stay out of it.” [09:16]

• Final Sweet, Cold Moment:
  Michael basks in the vengeful satisfaction of this reversal:

  “There’s an old Klingon proverb that says, revenge is a dish that's best served cold. And I gotta tell you, it was very, very cold on Christmas morning that year in Idaho.” [11:36]

Notable Quotes

• “Tom was sending me to the superintendent’s office on a pretty regular basis, and that usually meant I was getting hit on the butt with a hardwood paddle. That was just the way things at that school district worked.” [03:18]
• “Santa promised that little boy everything. Everything that he wanted and 50 things he hadn’t even considered. And Tom is just standing there rocking back and forth…scowling at me.” [09:47]

Tone & Memorable Moments

• Michael’s tone is wry, slightly sardonic, with a hint of gleeful mischief.
• The reversal of power—student becoming the arbiter over his old authority figure—is both comically satisfying and a little petty, in true RISK! storytelling form.

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Musical Interlude: “Horny Sad Christmas”

[11:43–13:23]

A moody, darkly comic song about mixed emotions and holiday despair, capturing the edgy spirit of the show.

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Story 2: “A Mom Made Christmas” by Jessica Piscatelli Robinson

[18:02–32:53]

Key Points & Insights

• Christmas Magic on a Shoestring: Jessica’s single mother—despite a divorce, financial hardship, and an often-absent father—always made Christmas special for her daughters with loving traditions, plentiful (if modest) presents, and acts of kindness to others.

  “Somehow my mom made Christmas just the best day of the year…there were just a million presents under the tree…they were individually wrapped socks and underwear. Nothing expensive, but it was just so great to have so many presents to open.” [18:30]

• Sudden Crisis:
  As a teenager, Jessica’s life is upended when her mother suffers a stroke. She and her sister Erica are thrust into caretaking roles with little warning or support.

  “I had to run out to the parking lot and just lose it. I started sobbing and howling. It’s not like I’d never been grocery shopping before…but it had never been my responsibility before. And I don’t think I knew it at the time, but maybe I sensed that that was the end of my childhood.” [24:45]

• Adjustment and Overwhelm:
  The sisters handle bills, meals, and try to navigate adult responsibilities while their mom struggles with rehabilitation, communication, and loss of independence.

  “It would be a long time before we figured out that mom would never fully recover…she’d never be able to read again, write, do math, drive.” [26:35]

• Facing a Bleak Holiday:
  With their mother stuck in a depressing rehab hospital and money tight, Jessica and Erica brace for their first Christmas “without” her.

• Community Kindness:
  Neighbors quietly help: a donated tree appears, and cash for Christmas is anonymously gifted.

  “One of our neighbors had left a Christmas tree by our front door. And another time, I found an envelope in our mailbox with cash in it that just said for Christmas.” [29:38]

• A Bittersweet Miracle:
  At the last moment, their mother is released from the rehab center. Jessica and Erica replicate the beloved cinnamon roll tradition, stuff stockings, and gather around the tree together—but Christmas can never be the same.

  “Mom had always made Christmas. She was alive, she was home with us, and there couldn’t have been a better gift than that.” [32:33]

Notable Quotes

• “She would hold me and rub my back and say, poor kids. And I told her we were doing okay. But the truth was, it was hard.” [23:37]
• “I didn’t want Christmas to come, but one day when we got home, one of our neighbors had left a Christmas tree by our front door.” [29:35]
• “There weren’t a lot of presents under the tree, but mom had always made Christmas. She was alive, she was home with us, and there couldn’t have been a better gift than that.” [32:33]

Tone & Memorable Moments

• Jessica’s narration is honest, vulnerable, occasionally wry, carrying listeners through grief, family duty, the awkwardness of roles shifting, and the quiet miracles of community support.

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Commentary & Reflections by Kevin Allison

[14:06, 32:53, and interspersed]

• Kevin highlights the layered emotions in Michael’s story, noting the “funny side and a sad side”—and reflects on the unfairness for kids “not getting a square deal.”
• He introduces Jessica’s segment by framing her as a professional storyteller deeply attuned to life’s struggles and joys.
• Throughout, Kevin maintains a tone of empathy, solidarity, and encouragement for listeners dealing with their own “holiday blues.”

  “Okay, gang, I hope you’re coming out of the holiday blues, if you’ve had them…” [32:53]

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Timestamps & Structure

• Introduction & Episode Theme: [01:32–02:48]
• Story 1: Michael J. Bennett, “Santa’s Revenge”: [02:48–11:43]
• Musical Interlude (dark holiday satire): [11:43–13:23]
• Host Reflection & Transition: [14:06–18:02]
• Story 2: Jessica Piscatelli Robinson, “A Mom Made Christmas”: [18:02–32:53]
• Host Closing thoughts: [32:53–34:11]

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Memorable Quotes Summary

• “Revenge is a dish that’s best served cold. And I gotta tell you, it was very, very cold on Christmas morning…”
  — Michael J. Bennett [11:36]

• “It’s not that it was a big house, but without her there, it felt empty.”
  — Jessica Piscatelli Robinson [23:16]

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Overall Tone

This episode balances irreverent humor, poignant reflection, and emotional catharsis—true to RISK!’s reputation for “stories you never thought you’d dare to share.” Listeners are left with the sense that while the holidays can bring disappointment and emotional valleys, they also spark unexpected acts of resilience and kindness.

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For more personal storytelling, visit risk-show.com.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risk, you'll hear Michael J. Bennett.

[B]

Revenge is a dish that's best served cold. And I gotta tell you, it was very, very cold on Christmas morning.

[A]

That and more. But first, there's still time to sign up for one of my next two eight week online storytelling workshops. One starts on January 14th, and we'll meet every Wednesday evening at 8:30 Eastern Time. 8:30 Eastern Time. Then I'm teaching another Sunday morning one starting on February 15th, with each Zoom session starting at 10:00am Eastern Time. Email me at kevinrisk-show.com to jump on in.

[C]

We'll be right back.

[A]

Now here's the show.

[D]

Sam.

[A]

Hello, folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison. This is Will Taylor behind me now. And this is holiday blues 3. We get so many amazing story pitches for holiday stories each year, and some are on the more serious or sorrowful or salty side. And so we've begun this tradition of sharing these Holiday Blues episodes, you know, shortly after the New Year's celebrations have subsided and the hangovers are starting to clear. Now in a little bit, we're going to hear from Jessica Piscatelli Robinson. But before that, a story from Michael J. Bennett. And here he is now with the story we call Santa's Revenge.

[B]

I grew up in a little tiny town in southern Idaho. I'm the oldest of six boys. There were 14 people in my graduating class. It was about 11 miles to the nearest traffic light. We had a lot of professional teachers there, but for some of them, they really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. We had some teachers that had burned their bridges in other school districts. They might have been on a sex offender list, and the only path they had left for teaching was in our school district. One of these guys was named Tom. He was primarily a coach, but as with a lot of coaches, he was there teaching history but not doing a great job of it. And my entire grade was assigned to his world history class. His lesson plan never varied in the slightest. It was bring something to do. I must have intimidated this coach because I was 6 foot 2 and he was maybe 5 foot 3 with lift tennis shoes. He just had it out for me. Tom was sending me to the superintendent's office on a pretty regular basis, and that usually meant I was getting hit on the butt with a hardwood paddle. That was just the way things at that school district worked. At the end of the semester, he was Expected to hand in a final exam to the administration. So on the last day of each semester, he'd pass out the test to everybody. And then he'd get up and he'd write the answers on the board. And he'd say, if you're an A student, go ahead and get everything right. If you're a B student, miss a couple. If you're a C student, miss four or five. I'll collect everything in 10 minutes. He just blew it day after day. But I survived the class, and I managed to graduate. I went off to college. I quickly learned that I had been robbed. I had no idea of any sense of world history, nothing. So school didn't go great. I wasn't very well prepared for it. And two and a half years later, I found myself working as a mall Santa. Every day I'd go into work, I'd put on the red suit, I'd glue the white beard to my face, put on the hat, and I'd sit down in that big chair, and the kids would line up and they would come sit on my lap. And every single kid was exactly the same. After the first day, they'd come, sit down, and I'd stroke that beard and say, well, what would you like for Christmas this year? And they'd give me the list of 10 to 15 things they wanted. And my job was to look them in the eye, stroke my beard and say, I don't know. And look at them, just peer deep into their eyes and say, well, I don't know. I've been keeping my eye on you pretty close this year, and I happen to know that you could do a better job of hanging up your coat when you get home from school. And you need to complain a lot less when you get vegetables for dinner that you don't like. And if they had any brothers and sisters with them, I'd stare them right in the eye and say, and you have been fighting with your brothers and sisters entirely too much. If it didn't happen on Christmas, well, Santa just couldn't pull it off this year, given your track record of behavior. And their jaws would drop and their bottom lip would start to quiver and their eyes to get really big. And you could tell the tears were just about to come. And the parents are standing there behind them and fold their arms across their chest and say, you tell them, santa, just when things looked hopeless, this is when I'd pull it out of the fire. And I'd say, but I'll tell you what. I know you're a good kid. So if you can work on those things that we discussed between now and Christmas, we'll see what Santa can do. And I'd hand them a little tiny candy cane and pat them on the head, and they'd get down off my lap, and they've had their call to repentance, and they go walking down the aisle. And I have done my job. I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. Santa makes no promises. One Thursday evening, just before Christmas, here through the line comes Tom, my world history teacher and coach from my high school. He's bringing this little boy who looks like he's about 5 or 6 years old. And I sat there on the chair behind that white scratchy beard and that red hat pulled down over my face, and I looked that teacher in the eyes, and I realized he has no idea who I am. So his little boy comes up and he's all excited and sits on my.

[E]

Lap, and I say, remind me of your name again. It's right there on the tip of my tongue.

[B]

Billy.

[E]

Yeah, Billy. Billy, I am so glad to see you. Tell me, Billy, what do you want for Christmas this year?

[B]

And Billy listed off the same 10 to 15 things that every other little boy wanted for Christmas. But instead of that usual call to repentance, I looked up at his dad and I looked at Billy, and I.

[E]

Said, you know, I think you've been a really good little boy this year. In fact, I think you might have been the best little boy in the entire world.

[B]

Billy nodded and his eyes got big.

[E]

And I said, billy, do you have a pony?

[B]

Billy shook his head.

[E]

I said, I think Santa needs to bring you a pony for Christmas this year. You could ride him to school, and you can feed him apples and carrots and sugar cubes, and you can tie him to the monkey bars at recess. And when everybody comes out to play, they're all gonna want to line up and have a ride on your pony. What are you gonna name him?

[B]

Buttons.

[E]

Oh, Buttons. That sounds like a great name for a pony. Santa's gonna bring you a pony named Buttons for Christmas. That's so exciting. Tell me something, Billy. Do you have a BB gun?

[B]

And Tom, that coach, stood behind me and he puffed up to all of his five foot three. And he looked me in the eyes and he said, now wait a minute, Santa. And I put up that white glove and I said, you stay out of this, Tom. I have been keeping my eye on you, and your behavior in your classroom has been entirely unacceptable. This is between me and Billy, so you stay out of It.

[E]

So, Billy, do you have a computer for your room?

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

How about a fleet of 12 remote control cars that you can race against each other?

[B]

I gotta tell you, Santa promised that little boy everything. Everything that he wanted and 50 things he hadn't even considered. And Tom is just standing there rocking back and forth between his left foot and his right foot, scowling at me. And we finished up with Billy, and.

[E]

I said, now, Billy, I gotta tell you, I'm kinda worried about your dad, Tom there. I'm kinda worried that he's gonna be jealous of all your cool stuff. He might get up early on Christmas and go hide all your presents in the garage. So you're gonna have to get up extra early to make sure that he doesn't steal it all. Thanks for being such a good little boy.

[B]

I handed Billy six candy canes and patted him on the head and reminded him what a good boy he'd been all year. He grabbed his dad's hand and started sprinting down the aisle away from Santa's sleigh. And Tom was looking back at me with this confused look on his face like, what did I ever do to you? And I just put up a white glove and waved and said, thanks for coming in, Tom. It's good to see you again. There's an old Klingon proverb that says, revenge is a dish that's best served cold. And I gotta tell you, it was very, very cold on Christmas morning that you're in Idaho.

[D]

Christmas Eve and my head feels loose. The lights outside seem so abstruse. Tree's still up though. It smells like pigs. I don't give fucks about any of this. I feel empty, I feel stupid, I feel insane. The room gets warm in a horny way like Santa's coming and he's here to play boots on the roof and my bulge builds fast I'm sad as hell and I need some ass. Have yourself a hornets at Christmas have yourself a horny sad night My life is nothing My brain is soup I want to get inside Santa soup I don't want joy I don't want cheer I want my thing inside his rear I want to be seen I want to be wrecked I want Christmas magic coming out my dear have yourself a horny sand sad Christmas have yourself a horny sad night have yourself a horny sad Christmas Wrap me up in red and dread I'm not okay I'm not improved I'm just pony sad and approaching dead.

[C]

We'll be right back. We're back.

[A]

This is risk. This is Artie Sown behind me now? And we just heard from Michael J. Bennett. Michael is a financial analyst for a recycling company where he uses storytelling to help industrial safety. He plays the tuba, he tells folk tales at Renaissance Fairs, and he's been a Risk fan since the third episode. We talked about how that story has a funny side and a sad side. I mean, the sad side is the kids not getting a square deal, including the boy on Santa's lap. He's basically an innocent bystander kind of caught in the crossfire of adult squabbling. But hopefully the lesson taught in the story made Dad a better teacher and father. Folks, one of our Patreon members named Steve sent this message with his contribution. Steve said, I'm so grateful I discovered risk in 2023 during the darkest period of my life. It has been a life buoy, a comfortable companion, a pleasant distraction, and a source of side splitting joy. I hope my support will enable the team to continue to provide this utterly unique content. Thank you so much Steve. Did you know that if just 10% of our regular listeners became Patreon members, we could easily keep Risk running without having weekly panic attacks about our financial situation with our staff? And there's so much to [e-mail] risk if you want to make a one time donation, you can do that too at PayPal.me/RisksHow and like I said up top my next two eight week online storytelling workshops are fast approaching. One starts on January 14, 2026. We'll meet every Wednesday evening at 8:30pm Eastern Time. Then I'm teaching another Sunday morning one starting on February 15th with each Zoom session starting at 10am Eastern Time. Email me at kevinriskdashshow.com to jump on in. It's such a wonderful way to meet people, to do a little self exploration, practice your social skills, learn a lot about creativity, and get all kinds of support and guidance around this hobby and art form and therapeutic wellness practice and essential part of life in the world. There's so much flexibility and options in the way the workshop is set up, so if you think you're too shy or too inexperienced or too whatever, you're not. People talk about the workshop being a highlight of their year and that includes me. Email me at kevinrisk-show.com to learn more now. Next we're going to hear from Jessica Piscatelli Robinson, the author of the book Stages My Life in Stories. And here's Jessica now with a story we call A Mom Made Christmas.

[C]

My Mom Made Christmas despite the fact that my parents got divorced when I was a baby and my dad moved up north and started a new family. So we hardly ever saw him, and according to my mom, we hardly ever saw the child support and, and my mom worked in a low paying job, so we were barely scraping by. Somehow my mom made Christmas just the best day of the year. On Christmas morning, I would wake up to the smell of cinnamon and sugar in our small ranch style home where my mom had made some delicious Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. And I'd walk out to the living room and the stockings had been stuffed full of chocolate and Pez dispensers. And there were just a million presents under the tree. And yeah, when I opened them, they were individually wrapped socks and underwear. Nothing expensive, but it was just so great to have so many presents to open. And then when we were done opening our presents and eating our cinnamon rolls, mom would throw me and my sister in the car and we'd pick head north on the parkway to go see mom's family and dad's family. And we'd blast Christmas music and we'd sing loud and along. And then we'd stop at every toll booth along the way and mom would give out little packages, little care packages of love to all the toll booth operators. Mom made the Christmas season such a joy that even as an angsty teenager, even at 16, I was still looking forward to Christmas. I was working in McCrory's, our local five and dime, stocking the shelves with Christmas crap, decorating the store with Christmas. We hadn't decorated our own house for Christmas yet because my sister Erica, she was 20, she worked full time and went to college at night. I was a junior in high school. I was in school all day and then at night I worked as many shifts as I could at McCrory's, trying to make some money, which during the Christmas season was a lot. And my mom, well, she worked full time during the day and at night she, I don't know, did whatever moms do, clean the house or, you know, read books or something, I don't know. But the point was we had not gotten around to decorating our own house, even though it was the week after Thanksgiving and I was busy decorating the store I worked at that night. Erica showed up at McCrory's about an hour before my shift was over. I got called to the front of the store and Erica was there crying and she said, mom's in the hospital, I don't know anything else. So I went and I got My stuff and I got in the car and Erica drove us to the hospital. We sat in silence because we didn't know what to say. And when we got there, they didn't tell us anything. Although eventually they let us leave the waiting room and go back into a hallway. The hallway outside the closed door of my mom's hospital room. Erica and I sat on the bench and waited for someone to tell us anything. And eventually a guy came up to us and said, okay, you can go see your mom. One at a time. Not for very long. Erica went into the room first and she came out just a few minutes later. And she was sobbing. She didn't talk, she was just crying. And then it was my turn. So I walked into mom's hospital room and saw my mom, who that morning had been a healthy 43 year old woman. And now she was lying in this hospital bed, shrunken, covered in a gown and tubes coming out of everywhere, coming out of her chest, coming out of her nose, coming out of her arms, going to machines that were beeping. And I was scared by the sight of her and I didn't want her to know that I was scared. So I said, hey, mom, how you doing? But mom didn't answer. She just shook her head and looked helplessly at the nurse who was standing next to her. And the nurse said, I know you're trying to say it, but it's hard. What was she trying to say? What was so hard that she couldn't tell me? I said, mom, are you okay? Mom just shrugged and shook her head. And I felt like I was gonna lose it and I didn't want to do that in front of her, so I just went up to her and I very awkwardly hugged her around the tubes. After just a minute, the nurse said, all right, let's let your mom rest. It's time for you to leave. So I went back out to the hallway where Erica was still sitting and crying. I didn't cry, though. I was just thinking, trying to figure out what was happening while we waited for someone to tell us anything. It was a while later that a doctor came up to us. And I'm sure he said a lot of things, but the only thing I remember him saying was, your mom has had a stroke. All the pieces came together. Mom wasn't not telling me something because she was afraid to tell me. She wasn't talking because she couldn't talk because she had had a stroke that night. Mom couldn't talk at all. But by a few days later, she was able to say I love you, Erica. And, yeah, it bothered me that she got Erica's name long before she got mine. But I forgave her. After all, when the doctor held up a pen and asked my mom what it was, she still called it a cow. By the end of that week, they moved mom to an inpatient rehab center, and Erica and I tried to return to our new normal life. Erica went back to work and college. I went back to work and high school, and mom went back to elementary school. During the day, she tried to relearn how to speak, how to hold a pen in her shriveled hand, how to walk without falling over, basically how to take care of herself. And she was doing well, but it wasn't fun. She shared a room with this awful old lady who moaned and complained constantly. Mostly she complained about how mom had visitors us. Yeah. And to be honest, I hated visiting. That place smelled like urine that had been poorly cleaned up with bleach. And there were all sorts of creepy people there who I know were probably suffering from the same thing as my mom, but they weren't my mom. And more than anything, I just wanted my mom back. But whenever we went to visit, mom just worried about us. She would hold me and rub my back and say, poor kids. And I told her we were doing okay. But the truth was, it was hard. Erica and I were used to cooking dinner for ourselves. You know, frozen dinner, Mac and cheese. We could handle that. Mom had always done everything else. And it's not that it was a big house, but without her there, it felt empty. The first time I went to the grocery store with my sister, I just got hit with this wave of anxiety, and I felt this sob rising up in me, and I. I had to run out to the parking lot and just lose it. I started sobbing and howling. It's not like I'd never been grocery shopping before. It's not like I'd never been grocery shopping without my mom before. But it had never been my responsibility before. And I don't think I knew it at the time, but maybe I sensed that that was the end of my childhood. Erica and I managed. We paid the bills, we cooked, we cleaned, we did our homework, and we tried to deal with the insurance and the doctors. And I don't know if the doctors just didn't want to communicate with us because we were kids or if they were just really bad at communicating, but I never felt like I knew what was going on. It would be a long time before we figured out that mom would never fully recover. That she'd never be able to read again, write, do math, drive. She'd never be able to work again. And Erica and I didn't know the questions to ask to find out why this was happening. It was many years later that we thought to ask to see a different doctor. And that doctor, that specialist, was the one who figured out that mom had a blood disorder, and that's why she was continuing to have strokes. But at the time, in that rehab center, we were just trying to get through every day without knowing what the next day held. And then there was Christmas just around the corner. In a monumental failure of judgment, the rehab center decided to cheer the place up a bit by decorating for Christmas and piping Christmas music through the loudspeakers all day long. And yes, it was as depressing as that sounds. If mom hadn't been worried about the upcoming holiday before, she was now. When I went to visit her one day, she told me about where she had some cash hidden in the house, and she wanted me to spend it on presents for Erica and I. It's not that we would have done that anyway, but we needed that money. We hadn't figured out how to get Mom's paycheck, and we needed to use that money to pay for groceries and bills. And to make things worse, the rehab center told us that mom wouldn't be home for Christmas. In all likelihood, we would be spending our Christmas morning at the rehab center with mom and her roommate. And the horror of that idea was driven home. And every time I visited, they always seemed to be playing that song, I.

[D]

Will be home for Christmas.

[C]

You can count on that song to make you cry if the person you love won't, in fact, be home for Christmas. I felt like a Grinch. I didn't want Christmas to come, but one day when we got home, one of our neighbors had left a Christmas tree by our front door. And another time, I found an envelope in our mailbox with cash in it that just said for Christmas. So we put up that tree and we decorated it with our ornaments and our colored lights and we hung our stockings. We didn't go crazy, but we. We tried hard to invoke the spirit of Christmas. And I guess it worked, because on Christmas Eve, the rehab center released Mom. They let us take her home. That Christmas morning was different from Christmases gone by, and Christmas would never be the same again. I made the cinnamon rolls and filled the house with the smells of cinnamon and sugar. Erica stuffed the stockings, and she and I wrapped a few measly presents. To put under the tree. And then when mom woke up, Erica and I helped her into the wheelchair and we wheeled her out to the living room. And we sat around the Christmas tree eating cinnamon rolls and listening to Christmas music, even though mom could no longer sing along. There weren't a lot of presents under the tree, but mom had always made Christmas. She was alive, she was home with us, and there couldn't have been a better gift than that. Sam.

[A]

This is Risk. This is Narrow Skies Behind Me now. And we just heard from Jessica Piscatelli Robinson. Her book My Life and Stories is available all over, but it's worth stopping by Jessica Piscatelli robinson.com to learn more. She's the executive director of Better Said Than Done. They produce storytelling shows in Fairfax, Virginia, and the annual Women's storytelling festival there and online. Look them up at better said than done.org womens-festival okay, gang, I hope you're coming out of the holiday blues. If you've had them next year, maybe you can visit sunshiny Thailand and get together with me here. People especially do love to come in the November through February period, as that's when the weather is best. And I love meeting Risk fans and storytellers traveling on this side of the world. Okay, that is that. And folks, today's the day. Take a risk.

[C]

We'll take a cup of kindness yet for the days of old life.

[D]

Sa.