5 stories that made us smile this 2021 2:44
(CNN) ––
On Christmas morning 2011, Linda Wenger caught a Metro-North train at New York's Grand Central Station to head upstate to Katonah.
She was in her 50s and had been divorced for a decade.
Her daughters always spent the holidays with their ex-husband: Wenger is Jewish, so she didn't have much of an affinity for Christmas, while her ex's new partner does celebrate the date.
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Wenger's sister's family also celebrates Christmas.
So she always traveled home to Connecticut on December 25th.
And she always did it alone.
"It always seemed to me that Christmas Day was a bit lonely, because I was never with my girls," Wenger now tells CNN Travel.
Wenger had a very successful career in marketing for a non-profit organization.
She was happy with her professional side and her life in New York.
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But when the train left the Manhattan terminal, he found himself pondering all this.
"I could have been a bit melancholic," Wenger recalls.
There were only a handful of other people in Wenger's car.
Among them, a man of a similar age to hers, who was sitting opposite.
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She watched him remove wallpaper and paint swatches from a bag, as he spread them out on the table in front of him.
"I just got this good vibe from him," Wenger recalls.
"I thought, 'He's kind of cute. And he's alone on Christmas day.'
She thought that he had probably sat across from her to start a friendly conversation.
But he seemed quite absorbed in his task.
As the city retreated into the distance, Wenger considered whether he should strike up a conversation.
Then the stranger brought out a particular floral wallpaper.
"Oh, that's William Morris, right?"
she said, recognizing one of the intricate patterns that characterize the Victorian artist's work.
The man looked up and smiled.
It was Michael McTwigan, a New Yorker in his 60s who had separated from his wife a year or so ago.
I was on my way to volunteer at a Christmas food drive in Katonah.
His boss lived in that area, and he had told him about the event, which sought to feed about 300 people during the festivities.
"It was Christmas Day and I thought, 'Well, it would be nice to do something and I'm alone, so what can I do that is useful?'" McTwigan now tells CNN Travel.
I was looking at the wallpaper swatches to pass the time on the train and do a favor for a friend who wanted a print to match the paint color in her apartment.
McTwigan, a former art critic with an aesthetic eye, had offered to help.
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When Wenger mentioned William Morris, McTwigan was shocked.
He suggested that she must have some artistic training to recognize the print.
Wenger explained that he had studied art history in college.
McTwigan told him about his art background, adding that he was now in the marketing part.
Wenger said he also worked in marketing, specifically for a large lung cancer research charity.
They began to chat about the joys, and the difficulties, of the profession they shared.
As they chatted about their lives and their respective plans for Christmas Day, the two realized that they shared a love of art, similar careers, and a drive to help others: Wenger through their work and McTwigan through of your volunteering.
"When he told me what he was going to do, I said, 'OMG, that must be the best character benchmark I've ever seen. Right? Someone is going to do something so generous on Christmas Day,'" Wenger notes.
McTwigan was just as enthralled with Wenger - he'd noticed that while she didn't downplay her career, she talked more about her connections with people than her accomplishments.
He felt that she was "very sensitive and intuitive".
"Sensitive in the sense of being aware of other people's feelings or moods, or whatever, and open to understanding what other people are feeling," she says now.
"She put people first, somehow that was more important than anything else."
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Once the two started talking, the conversation didn't stop.
And as the train passed through the New York countryside, they found that they enjoyed each other's company immensely.
"He had a very kind and sweet vibe," Wenger says.
"And I thought, 'Okay, this is something.' I felt something between us. '
The trip from Grand Central to Katonah takes just over an hour.
In no time they were entering Katonah's small platform, shrouded in trees.
When the train stopped, Wenger reached into her purse and handed McTwigan her business card.
The two then got off the train together and down the station stairs to ground level, where Wenger's mother was waiting to pick her up.
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Wenger and McTwigan shook hands to say goodbye.
When their hands touched, McTwigan touched up on Wenger's arm and held him for a moment.
"Nice to meet you," he said, smiling.
Wenger refers to this gesture as "the sweetest thing."
"It definitely made my heart pound with it," he says now.
When Wenger got into his mother's car - and later, while chatting with his sister and the rest of his family - he recounted what had happened on the train.
"I met this really interesting man," he explained.
"Yes, there was something going on between you," Wenger's mother said, laughing.
She had seen the prolonged handshake from the car.
Their flights were canceled, so they spent 24 hours falling in love with each other
"I was a little excited about it," Wenger says.
McTwigan also kept thinking about that meeting on the train.
"I really wanted to see Linda again," he says.
"There was no question in my mind about it."
A first date in New York
Over the Christmas and New Years period, the two exchanged a few emails.
McTwigan then asked if Wenger would like to see each other when they are both back in town.
He suggested a live event in New York, led by storytellers group The Moth.
As real people took the stage and told their stories, Wenger and McTwigan picked up their conversation right where they left off at the Katonah station.
They had a series of subsequent dates in New York City.
Some, they say, more successful than others: a pop-up guitar gig suggested by McTwigan turned a bit awkward when they realized the music was quite experimental.
"We didn't know each other well enough to say, 'This is really awful,' right away," Wenger recalls, laughing.
But then the two of them went to Joe's Pub in the East Village, where a jazz singer serenaded the audience.
"We were laughing and dancing, and that completely broke the ice," says Wenger.
They say they took their flirtation from day to day and tried not to have expectations.
They were both married before, and they approached falling in love again with excitement and fear.
"'Let's go slow and see what happens, because, after all, we know the dangers of choosing wrong,' was his mantra, says McTwigan.
"But especially as we lived more experiences together, all the similarities - the similar feelings and values - became clear to each of us, I think. We got closer," he adds.
"We were both very happy together, which was something we hadn't had in a long time, both of us," says Wenger.
"Much happiness, that becomes very addictive."
The relationship just felt natural, they say, and that was part of the appeal, too: They enjoyed spending time together and loved each other's friends and family.
A return trip
Here are McTwigan and Wenger on the Metro-North train on Christmas Day 2012, the first anniversary of their meeting.
(Credit: Linda Wenger)
On Christmas Day 2012, the two boarded the Metro-North train at Grand Station to Katonah, just as they had done the year before.
But, with the difference that 12 months ago they were strangers and now they were a couple who traveled together to visit Wenger's family.
Instead of sitting across from each other, they sat together, shoulder to shoulder.
They asked another passenger to take their picture, which started a tradition.
"Every year when we would get on that train, we would take a picture or ask someone to do it," Wenger says.
"Every year was like an anniversary, it was wonderful," says McTwigan.
The two soon moved in together.
Wenger crossed the Hudson River from his base in Manhattan to live with McTwigan in Brooklyn.
They were in Brooklyn for six years, traveling every Christmas to Katonah, before moving to Connecticut in 2018.
They love the community in their new neighborhood and enjoy the evenings spent in their garden.
The only downside is that when Christmas rolls around, the two of them no longer need to take the train to Wenger's sister's house, as they are close enough to drive.
"A Christmas miracle"
Here are McTwigan and Wenger on Christmas Day 2015, once again on the train to Katonah.
(Credit: Linda Wenger)
Wenger and McTwigan tied the knot in July 2018, at their Connecticut home.
"We just did it together," Wenger says.
And he explains that they took advantage of a moment when Wenger's eldest daughter, whose family lives abroad, was back in the United States.
It was a warm and relaxed event, the two say.
Friends and family filled the rooms of his house, eating smoked meat.
One of McTwigan's longtime friends officiated at the service.
"I think what we talked about next was that it felt like an outpouring of love for us," Wenger says.
"People were so happy that we had met. So it was a wonderful day for us."
In their vows, the two celebrated the "Christmas miracle" that brought them together: "A Christmas miracle for a Jewish girl," as Wenger puts it.
"It's crazy to meet someone in such a random way, with whom you have so much happiness, peace and so much in common," he says.
Everyone who knows them loves the story, he says.
"It was an unusual chance encounter," says McTwigan.
"But I mean, we didn't meet in Paris," Wenger adds, laughing.
"We met at Metro-North, a commuter train. But it worked."
10 years later
Here are Wenger and McTwigan on vacation in Capri, Italy, in 2015. (Credit: Linda Wenger)
This Christmas marks 10 years since Wenger and McTwigan sat across from each other on the train.
Unfortunately, the two will not be able to visit Wenger's sister in Connecticut this year.
The annual Christmas gathering was canceled on December 22, when Wenger's niece tested positive for COVID-19.
Instead, Wenger and McTwigan will celebrate together at home, just the two of them, eating all the appetizers they prepared for the family reunion that would be the largest.
While they will miss their family and the pandemic is a concern, they both say they love spending time in each other's company.
So they will make the most of the day together, as they do every day, feeling grateful that they met and took a risk.
The two hope their story inspires people to open up to new experiences and take advantage of the moments that come their way, no matter how unexpected.
"Always be prepared to take an opportunity, because you never know where it will lead, some will work and some will not, and that's okay," says McTwigan.
"But you should not go through life with a narrow focus, but look around you and take in everything that surrounds you and enjoy it. That is my conclusion."
"Yes, have an open heart," Wenger says.
"And also, I think that many people who are alone and do not want to be alone can have the feeling that nothing is going to change. And I went through a very long time being alone."
"I always had the attitude that something could change, something good could happen, and I wouldn't be alone. And maybe that's what made me the type of person who walks up to a stranger and asks a question, to make this happen. [...] I kept my heart open. "
Christmas train