The cul-de-sac

When I was six months old, my family moved into the house that we currently live in. Through the years we've had some change in neighbors, but not many. Almost all of the houses in my cul-de-sac were parade of homes houses in the 70's and most have not been updated, so the tenants are a little old as well. Three houses in particular have always sparked my curiosity because until recently, I had never been inside them. Not only had I never been inside the houses, but I had no contact with the people living there (with some exceptions). But a few years ago, the people living in one of the houses (the one right next door) moved and a young couple with two little girls moved in. Since the wife was one of my young women's leaders, I was able to go inside and see what the house was like. It kind of blew my mind to be honest. One mystery was settled.

The other two houses, the Allen's house and the Hausen's house, I got to go in tonight at our annual cul-de-sac christmas party.

Now before I finish this tale (it's rather confusing, I know) let me explain a few things about our christmas parties. Before our polynesian neighbors moved in, we had a lovely family live next door named the Westons. Sister Weston would always host the christmas parties and they usually involved a lot of singing and yawning. When I turned 12, the Pili's moved in and the christmas party turned into more of a food thing. And for some reason it always seemed to be at our house. Well to end this side note, the party was always something to be avoided.

This year, Mrs. Hausen decided that we really needed a christmas party because the one last year got cancelled (keep in mind I had never even seen this woman in my life and she's been my neighbor for my whole life). So Sister Sanders, the Martha Stewart of the cul-de-sac, decided to make this night a progressive dinner type thing. Instead of an actually meal, we would travel to 5 different houses and eat appetizers.

The first house was Sister Sander's and true to her style, everything was very elegant and nice. The food was excellent and it was good to see everyone. And then I noticed something strange... Mr. and Mrs. Hausen were there. I only knew she was Mrs. Hausen because she was with him and I've seen him driving every now and then. Even more strange, she knew our names and was friendly and outgoing to everyone.

Then someone said the thing that took me for a loop... the next house we were going to was the Hausen's. What!? So we walked over there and I found myself speechless drinking egg nog out of a crystal glass. Someone outdid Sister Sanders this year. Every inch of that house was decorated in christmas decorations. The food was excellent and the egg nog even better. After years of imagining the most extreme scenarios, I was almost disappointed to discover that they were quite normal and their house was normal as well. Two mysteries down, one to go.

The next house we went to wasn't necessarily a mystery, but it had been years and years since I'd been there that I didn't know what to expect. This was the Allen's house. Growing up, I always thought Sister Allen was way cool because she was Austrian and had a thick accent. Brother Allen has very sick for most of my life, so I don't actually remember seeing him, so I naturally thought he was austrian too. Come to find out, he's not. Anyway, when we stepped in I was again surprised to see that another person had outdone sister Sanders. Not only were there several different dips, but there was also baklava!!!! Who spends that kind of effort for a neighborhood get together? The saddest part was the next house we went to was ours and all we had was rice pudding.

Well the point of this post is to say that I learned something very important tonight, my neighbors are quite impressive. In a 10 house cul-de-sac we have two Japanese families, one Irish family, one polynesian family, one Lebanese family (the Hausens), and one austrian family. Everyone has a different background and I only wish that we would have put more effort into inviting all of our neighbors for the past christmas parties. Maybe that would have made them less painful.

The End

Oh and I almost forgot! The Hausens are our good friends now. In fact, after new years we're going over there to make some Lebanese cookies!