The other day, I was downstairs getting a glass of water when my wife and the boys were making cranberry butter. It’s one of her holiday standards, a sweet tangy mix of sugar, cranberries, and butter. She bumped my arm and nodded toward my oldest.

I turned to watch him lift a cranberry to his lips.

“He asked if he could sneak one,” my wife whispered to me. “I said yes.”

His face jerked back from the cranberry as if it had been burned. He glanced around and tried again, popping the berry into his mouth. His eyes widened and his mouth puckered into a tiny circle.  He spat the berry back into his hand, then tried to give it a lick.

My wife and I couldn’t help ourselves. We laughed.

“It’s. . . uck!” he said. “I never knew they tasted like this!”