Villa de Loon

By Tiber　

You may remember that last year at Christmas, Dad found a box of real 19^th century clothing up in one of the attic rooms and proceeded to dress us up as Charles Dickens-style carolers so we could try to make some money at the mall.

Of course, there wasn’t enough of the 19^th century clothing to go around, so Dad had to raid a box of 1920’s and 30’s clothing to fill in. Vanessa ended up looking more like a hooker in a speakeasy and Kru looked more like Scrooge’s accountant so this alone should have tipped us off that the project was doomed.

We got to the mall and auditioned out on the floor, only to realize, belatedly, that none of us knew all of the words to a lot of the carols. Dad panicked on “Oh, Tannenbaum” and instead started singing about his old college friend, Joe Tannenbaum.

And even with “Jingle Bells.” somebody replaced “riding in a one-horse open sleigh” with “riding in a Porsche Cabriolet,” which we then had no choice but to follow. Dad was furious and said later that we’d taken a lovely song about festive bells and turned it instead into a Christmas carol about German engineering.

In spite of it all, though, Dad optimistically thought that we might still get a call from the mall for a return appearance this year. That call did not arrive.

So Dad called all of us together around the piano here at the house and asked if we wanted to sing, just with the family. He turned around to pick up some sheet music and all twelve of the rest of us had disappeared instantly, like mist in a forest.

When we don’t want to do something, we can all vanish into thin air, thick air, medium-sized air faster than a frog tongue on a mosquito. I think we would all make very good spies.

So whether your family is singing well, singing badly or even not at all, Happy Holidays to you and have a New Year that is bright.

By Tiber

As you may recall, last year, in order to save money, Dad bought cases of Spam and tried to get us to eat it. Consequently, Dad still has cases of Spam.

This year, what with over 20 people here for Thanksgiving just with family and staff alone, Dad suggested that rather than buying an expensive turkey, we could model the Spam to look like one. Cook wouldn’t participate for professional – and sane – reasons, so Dad ended up doing it himself. Dad is no sculptor and the end result really looked a lot more like a bulbous pink stomach that had somehow escaped from a Pepto-Bismol commercial.

We still have the two peacocks, so my sister, Iris Nell, instantly jumped up and announced that anybody getting any ideas at all about them would have to kill her first.

So we made a meal out of the side dishes. My brother, Kru, sat there morosely trying to build a turkey out of his mashed potatoes and looked more and more like Richard Dreyfuss, in “Close Encounters,” after the aliens had zapped his brain.

Someone suggested that, for fun, the triplets could make those turkey pictures where you draw an outline of your outstretched hand. This was quickly vetoed. Not only are they about six years too old for that but knowing them, if you add a lack of protein into their everyday selves, they could easily just end up eating their own hands.

Finally, my sister, Erin, said,

“The point is, we’re all together!”

And instantly, people were yelling out things like,

“It’s not my fault!”

“I tried to lock him in his room but he got out anyway!”

“I told them Thanksgiving was in December this year but it still didn’t work!”

And then, we all realized that she’d meant it as a good thing.

And, truthfully, it was.

So Happy Thanksgiving from all of us to all of you and yours.