Volume 162 - Tinsel and Tidings!

We are well into the holiday season, which means that many of us are frantically baking, decorating and going  just a wee bit overboard to meet the childhood ideal. Although I voluntarily traded a Christmas tree for a Menorah several years ago, I'm no less immune to tinsel and tidings. Twinkling lights, festive gift wrap and bows, and freshly baked treats, all take me back to warm afternoons spent in my mother's kitchen when the Christmas season was central to my upbringing.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose . . ."

My five siblings and I excitedly crowded around the wooden table with bowls of brightly-dyed icings, multicolored sprinkles and tiny silver balls for decorating our sugary concoctions (Silver bells are you listening?) With Christmas carols playing in the background, we worked like Santa's elves singing, creating, and carefully packaging Christmas tins full of fudge, peanut brittle and smiling gingerbread men, to be delivered to teachers, friends and neighbors alike. It's a family tradition I'd expected to carry on with my own sweet children . . . "Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow . . ."  even if Christmas is no longer the star attraction in my own home. 

Except that I have boys . . .  and as it turns out, boys (at least my boys) aren't so interested in baking and decorating cookies. (Eating them, yes - baking them? Uh, not so much). Moreover, stuffing boxes and tagging them with gold-lettered salutations and pretty metallic string doesn't really appeal either (go figure).

"Follow me in merry measure . . . While I tell of Yuletide treasure . . ."

Not that the boys don't pitch in (with some heavy coercing) it's just that there's far less good cheer and fa-la-la-la-ing along the way. At the risk of stereotyping boys and girls (or men and women for that matter) there is a distinct difference in our respective approaches to these annual festivities. What I think of as 'traditions,' my boys (and my husband) think of as 'chores!" "Deck the halls with boughs of  holly, Tis the season to be jolly . . ." (Is it too late to adopt a daughter  - or borrow my neighbors'?)

The same is true for house hunters as well. Men and women seem to have very different criteria when considering and examining a home. While initially, both genders look at size and location, when it really begins to get serious, women start to hone in on closet space, kitchen and bathroom utility and proximity to schools, while men tend to turn on the water and check the pressure in the pipes (no kidding).

"Silent Night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright . . ."

Far be it for me to say that one is necessarily better than the other. I just think it's fascinating to note the stark differences. As a general rule, most men don't tend to get excited over hardwood floors and leaded-glass windows, but throw a GIGANTIC flat screen TV, a potential media room, and a 2-car garage into the mix and we are talking a whole new level of interest. Add a backyard with a lawn large enough on which to throw a baseball or kick a soccer ball and it's "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way . . ."

Okay, I'm quite sure I owe an apology to some of you more refined aesthetic types (Chad, even you must know you're in the minority) but the fact remains that I have shown hundreds of properties and this is invariably the way it goes down.  Moreover, I think it's beneficial to the house-hunting process to have differing opinions. Someone should care about the electrical components in the house, the foundation and the roof - it's just that it usually isn't the woman. At least, that's been my experience thus far.  

Let's face it, men and women often approach home shopping (or any shopping) quite differently and my personal belief is that it improves and rounds out the experience . When it comes to buying a home, two minds are definitely better than one (unless of course, you bring ALL of your friends to chime in). 

"Up on the housetop reindeer pause, out jumps good ol' Santa Claus . . ."  

 Whatever criteria you use, opinion you seek (or carol you sing) the best outcome is when both parties come to the same conclusion and agree that this home is the 'right choice' for everyone involved. "Wrap it up, We'll take it."

"May your days be merry and bright, and may all your 'holidays' be white."