Each holiday season, I like to kick back and remember the time my family banded together to roll a derelict hot tub down the road on Christmas Eve.
The particular Christmas I’m about to describe would have been strange enough without the aforementioned tub. For one thing, it snowed about a foot that year, a curious and sensational occurrence in the Puget Sound, one liable to cause widespread panic in the streets (curiously, us Northwesterners can endure years of nonstop rain with stoic indifference, but the lightest dusting of snow results in pandemonium and chaos). Additionally, we lost electricity for the week leading up to Christmas Eve morning, meaning my poor mother’s preparations for our annual holiday party (normally a three week affair, if you don’t count the additional six months of initial planning) were squeezed into a mere six hours. To top things off, I had pretty extensive oral surgery just a few days before the festivities, so I spent much of the holiday sitting in a corner in a peaceful, painkiller-induced haze. As I said, all of this would have been enough strangeness for one Christmas, even without the hot tub.
The tub in question appeared as if by magic in the middle of our road. My childhood home was in the woods, you see, at the end of a long and winding dirt driveway. While such a private retreat was the perfect place for playing in the woods and roaming free, it was also apparently an ideal dumping ground for cheapskates unwilling to pay to have their garbage disposed of. In any case, on the morning of Christmas Eve my stepfather went out to fetch the newspaper and found that someone had deposited a moldy hot tub smack dab in the middle of our private drive. Upon learning of the tub’s advent when my stepfather returned, all the kids proclaimed it a Christmas miracle and immediately rolled out the front door to go play on it, tetanus be darned.
That evening, my stepbrothers and their girlfriends arrived for the Christmas Eve party. Usually, this involved eating good food, drinking choice beverages, and playing party games. Admittedly, my family’s parties were always a little eccentric (one year, someone tied a paper bag full of candy to the ceiling and instructed all the kids to go play with the “piñata”), but the miraculous presence of the hot tub took things to a new level of weirdness. Indeed, our unexpected Christmas visitor was the focus of the evening’s festivities, and our usual games were suspended so that the family could gossip about the hot tub in all its juicy details: what was it (we wondered) and, more importantly, what was it doing in our driveway?
At some point, someone suggested that we take matters into our own hands and roll the hot tub down to the end of the road so that the County could deal with it in the morning. This suggestion was met with a chorus of approval and a general scramble to stuff ourselves into jackets, boots, snow pants, and other cold-weather apparel. Then, with the intrepid air of pioneers setting out for uncharted Western territories, the whole family trundled out into the snow to deal with our unwanted Christmas guest.
Actually moving the hot tub turned out to be easier said than done. Unused to dealing with anything apart from drizzle and 40 degrees, it took us about a quarter of an hour to figure out how to walk in the snow. Then, the hot tub proved to be stubbornly immobile once we finally reached it midway down the road. A heated discussion regarding the proper method of hot tub disposal broke out. Amidst all the confusion, one of the littler kids (probably me) started badgering everyone with questions about when Santa would come, and what kind of gas mileage his sled was getting these days, and whether or not the elves had gotten their act together and formed a workers’ union. It was as strange a sight as one could expect to see in the world: a whole family, swaddled in Arctic gear, trying to push an oversized hot tub down a dark and snowy road on Christmas Eve.
What happened next was a feat of resilience, ingenuity, and teamwork. Instructing the younger family members to shovel a pathway through the snow with tiny garden trowels, the adults dug in their heels and slowly but surely nudged the hot tub toward the main road. I’m not quite sure how long the whole process took (I was on some pretty strong medication, as you’ll no doubt recall), but we succeeded in depositing the hot tub at the edge of the main road well before the stroke of midnight. In the morning, we awoke to the cheery prospect of opening presents and watching the County drag away our hot tub on a tow truck.
This will be my favorite Christmas memory until the day I die. Other families might have their carols and decorations and other wholesome holiday diversions, but I hardly care about such conventional trivialities. Indeed, when you have a family that is capable of dealing with the sheer strangeness of life with enthusiasm and a sense of humor, all the bells and whistles of a normal holiday are mere bonuses.
*Note from Margaret, Executive Assistant for Pickett Street Properties: Stories like Ian’s are what make life so interesting and beautiful! Family is not just made up of the blood relatives you may or may not have grown up with. Family is truly those people you choose to surround yourself with every day. One of the reasons I choose to work at this company is because of the amazing people I get to surround myself with on a daily basis. Katie Silver is not just my Lead Buyers Agent for the team, she’s one of my best friends now. Sarah Troske and I share an office- she knows what I need to be successful and she supports me consistently as my colleague and my friend. Jesse D. Moore is not only my direct report, Owner of Pickett Street, and Lead Listing Agent- he’s a friend and one of my biggest cheer leaders. David Eneberg is that cheerful, constant support who does things like give my brother and his wife $50 towards a new washer/dryer (tear). Amanda Weis is what I like to call a kindred spirit of mine- she’s the first to volunteer for any event and will always bring that extra dish you need- along with her smile and beautiful spirit. Kamal is brand new, but we never hire without looking for that person that we know we’d want to call family. This is what I call family, and these are the folks I choose to surround myself with.
I tell you this because I want you to know that Pickett Street is more than a Real Estate Team & company. I want you to know that when you decide to work with us as a buyer or seller, we represent you as we would our family. Reach out today so we can help you next: #425.502.5397 or email me personally at margaret@pickettstreet.com