Our house has just gotten a complete Christmas makeover, thanks to our granddaughter Sage Massey and her mother Lillian. It actually got started about a week after Thanksgiving when Zee and I hosted 28 members of the Massey side of the family and all enjoyed themselves immensely. The day after Thanksgiving Sage and Lilly decided that this was indeed the perfect house to entertain in and with Christmas just around the corner, the Brinan and Varian side thought that it would indeed be the perfect place for Christmas. But this time there would be no typical “run of the mill cleaning and bed making and the Christmas Grinch for each of the last five years that had stolen all the Christmas decorations and a Christmas tree was never seen. 

             So a new breath of life was in order. It started by fixing a leaky roof that if you happened to be sitting on the pot in what we call the back bathroom while a rain storm was in progress you could get rained on, not so much that an umbrella was needed but enough to quicken your stay. Then it was on to the windows of which there are plenty, some needed a 20-foot ladder to reach them. A total house bath with a high-pressure washer was next. Adios to all the spiders, some that had lived long enough in their Cobweb houses to now be on social security, and Bats just love all the eaves that protect our outdoor spaces. I’m a Bat lover for all the good things that they do, like those that eat their weight in bugs and insects every night. I feel that somebody “probably not me” could sweep up all the Bat poop and use it to fertilize our lawn or rosé garden. But in my family that is not a popular view so we continue to close up places where my friends might have had a place to live when they return each year from their winter vacation in Mexico. 

          With the outside all cleaned up and still retaining its 50-year-old patina look it was time to move inside. Our house was built to accommodate my family of six and as a place where Zee and I could entertain. But in only what seemed like a moment in time our four children were off to college and it turned out that Zee and I weren’t really into entertaining when events great and small showed themselves. 

             I see a swirling mass of energy coming from our next-door neighbor's house. Sage and Lilly arrived and things started changing immediately because that evening when I went to get myself a bowl of ice cream the ice cream scoop was not in its proper place and my toothpaste was in some never-used drawer. Throughout the next couple of weeks, there would be more changes that if we wanted to be annoyed we could but I could hardly wait to see this “diamond in the rough” as it emerged into an elegant homey place where 42 would sit down outside on a beautifully warm afternoon Christmas Day to celebrate the birth of Christ and eat till stuffed. Zee and I through it all didn’t have to lift one finger. The evening was people’s choice.  There was a game of pool in the living room and conversation in the parlor or watching my favorite football team the San Francisco 49ers get a thrashing the Baltimore Ravens with a score of 33 to 19. What a way to end a most memorable December. 

                           See Ya, 

                            Jack