Xmas 2017

I was told that we'd love the house - that it was creepy and hauntworthy. It was, and in spades. The place was huge, dark-panelled, high-ceilinged and had an amazing upstairs hallway at the center of the house with a circular skylight in blood-red glass. Shirley Jackson would have shrieked with delight. The house is the oldest on Lake Fairlee. Not quite ON the lake, it's across the road from the northern shore and on slightly higher ground. I first saw the house with its square cupola framed in the snow-covered trees of the long driveway. Paul and I had one of the four bedrooms upstairs in the main part of the house with windows that gave access to the porch that went all the way round the second floor and which had huge, overhanging cornices of snow that had partially slid off the roof. The ground floor consisted of an immense living room, a dining room behind pocket doors and a third room used as a TV room. The kitchen had been expanded and had a huge central island and a wood stove for additional warmth. The kitchen was the warmest room in the house and Mom installed herself in a chair near the stove for much of our stay. "Close the door!" was a common refrain over the weekend.

We had a lovely chili supper the first night we were there, thanks to Carolyn - we ate round the kitchen island. Thanks to John and Carolyn the living room was made very festive with a Christmas tree cut down on the property of family friends the Nininger's the day before and trimmed with decorations and lights brought up in the car from Virginia. Beyond allowing everyone to arrive and get to all activities (including the aforementioned skiing, the Christmas Eve service in West Newbury and a lovely party afterwards at the Atwoods), the weather further cooperated by providing us with a lovely snowfall on Christmas Day. We spent the day wrapping presents, cooking the dinner, working on a jigsaw puzzle, working on crosswords with Mom, and going for walks, while the snow fell gently and steadily outside. John went up to West Newbury and collected Louise and Bill and we all had a lovely Christmas Dinner together in the great room.

Okay, it wasn't "wild" but it was lovely. The event that inspired the entire trip was Louise's 90th birthday which we celebrated with a party in Newbury on Boxing Day. The hall at the Newbury church lent itself better to the proceedings, being all on one level and with much better accessibility than the one in West. We arrived an hour early (or was it two hours early?) to set up and decorate. The machine was set in motion: the punch bowl was filled, nibbles were laid out, lights wound around windows and the barre (the hall is used as a ballet studio), and balloons and streamers hung. John and I were to provide the accompaniment for the hymn sing, Louise's requested party activity, and John spent some of the time practising his "set" in the corner on the wonderful electric piano - a Godsend. We were ready with a comfortable margin by the time the guests started turning up.

Louise and Bill arrived (Nora had gone to collect them) to a an already (somewhat) bustling room. The party was a great success, I think. Louise seemed to have a wonderful time. The hymn sing intervened before conversation had waned and that went well. John played very well - I held up my end without great mishap (except for an unintentional reverse-Picardy-Third at the end of one of the hymns). After blowing out the candles on her three lovely cakes, Louise made a speech in her own inimitable style. Conversation continued a while longer and then the guests began to file out.

I found the aftermath a little melancholy. The whole thing had gone so quickly and smoothly - it seemed to have ended before it began. We went through the process in reverse - bagging leftovers, pulling down streamers, popping balloons. When the last hymnal was loaded into the back of the car, we pulled the door shut.