Christmas Cheers

I am so glad we moved to this neighbourhood. The place is much quieter, affords us more privacy yet without the isolation we felt in the old place. If I may be so bold, it feels less like "nouveau riche" and more like "old wealth" though of course, this is far from being an area of the rich and famous. It is decidedly middle class. The houses are not so hemmed in and there seems to be more room to breathe.

And the Christmas lightings here is wondrous. The community takes a great deal of pride in its surrounds and the families have a friendly competition on the best decorated home. Some of the decorations and lights are wonderful to behold. You can tell it took a lot of work and the expenses definitely not trivial. I can't wait to see the looks on the kids' faces when they arrive. Ethan and Elliott first. They will be here tomorrow. Yeah!

And yesterday, to our great delight, as we were coming home in the afternoon from the half man's piano recital, we saw bags of white all lined up neatly along all the roads in the neighbourhood, up and down. Just hundred of them, maybe even thousands. Except at the road junctions - here the bags were more christmasy, red and white with christmas tree designs. A truck and an SUV driven by moms and dads with teens in the back were happily driving slowly up and down, placing the bags along the sidewalks. I could not resist and took a peep. In each bag, sand and a candle.

The Lai's picked us up at 4:15 and we were off to spend a very fun night at CJ and Tommy's humongous home in Tracy. It was one of their monthly home team gathering and this one was special because it was also to celebrate Christmas together. The house was new and huge - over 5,000 sq ft built-in and with a very large land lot. Just a beautiful home. CJ and Tommy were very good hosts. We made new friends - John and Jeannie and their two boys - and Elvin and Eve were there with their two girls as well. The company was delightful, the discourse full of self deprecating good fun and the food very good. It was altogether a very enjoyable night.

And to end on a high note what had turned out to be just a day of surprises, as we turned the corner into our corner of San Ramon, all the hundreds, maybe thousands of bags were lighted up. Someone or someones had taken the trouble to stand every candle up in the bed of sand in each bag and lighted it. The spirit of Christmas was truly in the air. I have never experienced Christmas as it has been celebrated in this community. The Lai's were suitably amazed and drove us up and down to admire all the Christmas lightings.

As I said, I am so glad we moved.