That's the problem with living in a small community: they want to know you too well, and what they don't know about you, they simply make up for. Which is why we don't attend any neighbourhood Christmas parties, including the one above.
I've now lived in this little lane for thirty-two years, and to the best of my knowledge, no-one who's ever given such an open Christmas party invitation bothered to repeat it in later years, but, with new blood coming in all the time, the invitations continue, with this one by some really nice people who haven't been here long enough to know better.
Perhaps it's because I had read Dale Carnegie's famous book when I was still in Germany and still far too young to understand it, but I've never been the sort of "Hail fellow well met" person who makes friends easily. So for the first seven years at "Riverbend" I did a Greta Garbo act and told people "I vant to be let alone", which allowed neighbours to make up their own stories about me. Then, after having kept my gates and mouth firmly shut for all those years, I thought I had better introduce Padma to the neighbourhood after she had just arrived here in 2000.
The first and, as it turned out, only Christmas party we ever attended was at the same house as this year's party when the house was still occupied by owners two removed from the current ones. It was then the custom for newcomers to have to introduce themselves, so when it was Padma's turn, she gushed on about how wonderful the neighbours were. Before the others had even finished their approving applause, a dark voice in the background stage-whispered, "Give them time!" Years later that same person and his wife became our NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL!
So, no, we won't be attending this year's street Christmas party which gives us hope they will still like us because they don't know us too well.
