Great Neighbors

We have two of the best neighbors you could ever have. I'll call them Santa and Mrs. Claus. He looks exactly like Santa Claus, and he plays Santa all throughout the Christmas season. His wife, Mrs. Claus, is the manager of our apartment complex. They're old enough to be our grandparents, and they are the closest thing to family that we have up here.

They got married when Mrs. Claus was only 16, and they started making babies really soon. They had 9 children! They wanted an even dozen, but she had troubles with number 9 and the doctor told her that she should quit there, and take care of the 9 that she had. They have 7 living children now, as two of their sons were killed in a car accident when they were in high school.

My wife and I had been living in our apartment for nearly a year before we even got to know Santa and Mrs. Claus. My wife was in the office one day to pay rent or something, and began talking with Mrs. Claus. They discovered that we were all church goers, and so Mrs. Claus was thrilled to know that she had fellow Christians living at the complex. She soon invited us over for dinner one night. We had so much in common with them, and we were all wondering why it took so long for us to figure it out.

Soon after that dinner, we ate over there again on a night that I hope to never forget. Mrs. Claus has a piano in their living room. She is very good, and both her and Santa are excellent singers. Santa works for Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and a coworker of his sings in a gospel trio. They invited my wife, me, and the young coworker over for dinner on this night. Let me also point out, that my wife has an angelic singing voice. I took my guitar as well. We were in store for an awesome night of old-timey gospel singing after our dinner.

And an awesome night of singing it was. There were 5 of us crowded around the piano, and we were singing four-part harmony, in all it's glory, to very old classic gospel hymns. I like all sorts of music, as you can gather from this website, but this type of music has its own place in my heart as being the best. I think a few tears of joy were shed on this night by everyone.

It was this night, that brought the Claus family and us to the relationship that we have today. Since then, we've eaten countless meals together (both at our apartment and at theirs), we've gone to the lake together on their boat, they've followed us to Bowling Green for a dance in Lost River Cave, we've driven two hours to their home town to help them celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, I've fixed countless problems on their computer, we've sat on their front porch as the sun goes down and simply enjoyed each other's company, and last but certainly not least, we've gone to church together. In the struggles that my wife and I have gone through here in Jeffersonville in finding friends and feeling at home, I truly believe that God put Santa and Mrs. Claus into our live. And I'm so thankful that he did.