We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.

Snowhills are good for fort building, tunnel digging, and hiding behind fortresses and nailing your sister in the mouth with a butt load of snow from close range. They are good for saucer sledding. They are not good for shoving matches. They are not good for coming over from another neighborhood, acting like you own the place, especially if your name is Megan and no one likes you anyway.

Bossing people around on their snow hill and announcing to me that Santa Clause doesn’t exist will result in a verbal assault by my older sister, Emily. If you insist that Santa is a big fat lie, you will be shoved by Emily and told repeatedly to Shut Up. It is not recommended that you shove her back and cause her to tumble down said hill and split her lip open on the Telephone Company’s parking lot asphalt.

It is hard to run 5 blocks to your father’s hardware store in Moon Boots. Nineteen-year-old, probably high, bicycle mechanics named Tim do not like being the only adult around on such occasions, and they do not like calling the neighbor girl to baby-sit you while he takes your older sister, who is bleeding down her chin and throat and onto her shiny yellow snowsuit, to the emergency room. Tim does not like that the reason your father was not at the store is because he was in the house right next to the scene of the incident, but happened to be untangling Christmas lights in the attic and not hear the commotion.

Tim will hold her hand through three stitches, and your dad will leave you with the neighbor, walk to the hospital and carry her home. Later, he will feed you hotdog pizza, toss you both into the bathtub and play the Entertainer on the piano while you splash around because it’s Emily’s favorite and she’s had a rough day.

When you’re choosing pajamas (you father’s t-shirts, that come down to your knees), you will let Emily wear the Eagles one from the 1978 concert Dad went to at Comisky Park in Chicago, because that is the most coveted nightgown of all.

Your sister doesn’t need to know that you already knew there wasn’t a Santa Clause, but she does need to know that when she needs a warm, comfy Thank You, you will provide it in the form of your favorite shirt that lists “Witchy Woman” as song number 10 on the play list, right under a picture of a giant Eagle, wings spread wide.