Sarah Nigbor

I may be in the minority (or am I?), but I am not liking this brown winter. My bald tires appreciate the dry pavement and getting new tires is first on my list for 2024, but I would be thrilled with a few inches of fluffy, white snow. The dreary brown and gray landscape leaves me feeling gloomy and tired. I truly don’t mind the short days of winter, but this no snow is depressing.

According to area weather forecasters, brown Christmases are not uncommon. In the past 17 years, we have had seven brown Christmas days (including this year): in 2006, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2021. Since 1899, we have had 36 brown Christmases and the record high was 51 degrees in 1922.

Those statistics made me feel a bit better. But Christmas just wasn’t the same, looking out the window at dead brown grass and not wearing a coat while last-minute gift shopping. I honestly could never spend Christmas in a warm/tropical climate. But enough of my belly aching about the lack of snow. I just feel bad for the people whose livelihoods depend upon a snowy winter, like snowplow businesses or snowmobiling hubs.

Since we couldn’t go sledding as usual this winter break, I decided it was time to teach my kids the quintessential Wisconsin card game: Euchre. What Wisconsin gathering doesn’t have hotdish and Euchre? I felt it was my duty to teach them a game that is so engrained in our state’s heritage. And imagine my surprise when my eastern Wisconsin husband, who claims to be “more Wisconsin” than me with his perch fish fries, bubblers and his version of brandy old-fashions, admitted that he didn’t know how to play. My petty side felt an immediate rush of glee at his admission. Ha! For once, I was ahead in my Wisconsin points.

I didn’t grow up in a Euchre-playing family (we played a card game called 99 with my Aunt Lorraine), but I quickly learned the ropes in college sitting around a table in our Cascade Avenue house. We would play for hours and it never got old. As I explained the rules about the right and left bowers and the trump suit to my kids, it all came rushing back. Time to train the next generation of card sharks.

I can safely say that I created a monster. That’s all the boys wanted to do over break. My competitive streak came out and I gladly accepted each challenge with my oldest as my partner. When I couldn’t play, Shane stepped in. He’s a fast learner. And when he couldn’t play, the boys played poker. It was so wonderful to see their phones put down for hours at a time in favor of cards. It’s a memory I will cherish for a long time, and now a family tradition.

Euchre is thought to have originated from the Alsatian game Juckerspiel, brought to the Midwest by German immigrants. Its origins can be traced back to European five-trick card games in the 1400s. The word bower (highest card of the Jack of the trump suit) comes from the German word for farmer, bauer.

Now that Euchre has been mastered, the next two on the list are cribbage and sheepshead. Good goals for this year, especially if this brown winter continues.