Every year, Anne and I make tons (tonnes) of Christmas cookies for our friends and family. We do gingerbread men, snowmen, ginger snaps, and sugar cookies with pounds of sugary “frosting” on them. Oh, it’s the opposite of healthy, but so much fun! We take these cookies, put them on a nice festive plate, and deliver them to our neighbors on Christmas Eve. Of course, this year, we were both sick as hell in the weeks leading up to Christmas, so we didn’t bake anything for friends (family still got some plague with their cookies, but if you can’t give plague to your family at Christmas, what can you give them?) Yesterday, we were both well enough to make several plates of cookies, and last night we delivered them as “New Year’s Treats.” Our neighbors are so wonderful, we ended up spending the entire evening in their homes, looking at pictures, drinking wine, and catching up. People talk about “your friends and neighbors,” and we’re incredibly lucky that our friends are our neighbors.
When I bought my first house about ten years ago, I was totally oblivious to the importance of location, and I ended up living next door to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell. Their ability to be slovenly, inconsiderate jerks was stunning. They were so terrible, we ultimately sold the house we loved to move away from them. When we were looking for a new house, even if the neighborhood looked nice, (which many of them did) I went out of my way to knock on doors, and meet the potential new neighbors. (“Hi, I’m Wil, and I may be buying a house on this street. Are you cool?”) I’m sure that seems a bit weird, but if you’ve ever lived next to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell, you may understand why it was so important to me.
I was a long, tough, and sometimes frustrating process, but we finally found a great house, on a great street, surrounded by great people, and that’s where we live now. In a way, I’m glad we lived next door to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell when we did, because they taught us the value of neighbors, and the value of living on a street where there’s real community.