Once a year we visit Edmundo Rombeiro’s Christmas house in Novato. The Griswald house doesn’t hold an electric light to this one.  When we drove up to it this year, my son remarked, “Wow, that’s a lot of Christmas lights.  Maybe too much!” 

Out of the mouths of four-year-olds…

Not only is Rombeiro’s house decorated on the outside, but all rooms, save one bedroom, are totally decked out inside as well!  My neighbor is Rombeiro’s cousin and she and her husband are there almost every night in December.  They need helpers to make sure people don’t touch, or in one case, attack, the decorations.

Early in December she said they had six hundred and sixty visitors in one night, and that’s not even the rush time. Tour busses, often with seniors, stop by regularly.  The family keeps track of the amount of people by how many candy canes they give out nightly.

My favorite room is the angel room.  Although there are way too many angels to focus on just one, it has a calm and peaceful feeling.  My neighbor has seen people enter that room and begin to weep.

My son’s favorite room, of course, is the train room which we visited twice.

By the end of the visit we are always on sensory overload, but officially in the Christmas spirit.

By Kristy Lund

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# posted by Writing Mamas Salon @ 12:01 AM