The Christmas House
A verified Amazon review-The Christmas House is the embodiment of the Christmas Spirit. Magical, wondrous, full of the warmth generated by the company of family and friends during good times and hard. This book hits you with a healthy dose of reality, but it also takes you on a fantastical journey filled with hope and joy, grace and forgiveness. If you don't examine it too closely, but just let the words transport you on a trip that will engage your emotions and give you cause to ponder what can be real, what may be true - if "close your eyes" and open your heart, this book will bring it all to life and make you believe. I found this book engaging from the first chapter, it kept drawing me in, pulling me into the world of the house and those who live there, as well as those individuals who visit once every year at Christmas. This story is not without tragedy, but it is also infused with the glorious strength and bright light that the human spirit is capable of producing, with a little divine help and the steadfast support of the people who love you. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, wanting to see what happened next, anxious to find out what happened to the characters in the book I had grown to care about. The story surrounds your senses and brings the sights and smells, the many textures of Christmas to your heart, as it lifts your spirit up and makes you wonder...This podcast offers the first four chapters of the novel. The entire audio book will not be available on Amazon until Thanksgiving 2022. More episodes (chapters) will be added in the future.
The Christmas House
Chapter Eighteen- The First Step
April of the Following Year
Lake Forest, IL
Over the last four months, Michael struggled with many challenges. His faith in life, love, and God was still uncertain. He tried to focus his energies on rebuilding the house, hoping his faith would come along in time. With every wooden two by four that was nailed and every brick laid, Michael rebuilt the house and his faith simultaneously. He stopped drinking and started to eat again on a more regular schedule. Although he acted as the general contractor for the house's construction, he decided to work side by side with the other workers, swinging a hammer and ripping floorboards.
The process of the reconstruction of the house had been lengthy. The cleanup alone took two months. Although still intact after the explosion, the home's foundation needed significant repairs. The foundation planners argued with Michael repeatedly about knocking down the old foundation and starting fresh. They just couldn’t imagine why Michael would want to limit the construction of a brand new home to the existing foundation's footprint. There was more than enough land to expand the layout of the house to be four times the size of the original. Michael insisted that the old foundation be utilized.
Springtime arrived, and the structure of the house was in place. Michael and his fellow contractors were now working on the interior, putting up drywall, taping walls, laying floors, etc.
Michael tried to design the home's interior to match the original house as closely as possible. In many cases, this task was impossible due to the modern-day building codes in force. All in all, the house closely resembled the original 150-year-old mansion that once stood at this location.
May 1st
148 Festive Lane
8:00 a.m.
Carpeting and wallpaper installers arrived at the house on this bright and sunny day. May's warmer temperatures were a welcome change from the bitter cold that seemed to have lasted forever.
Michael was walking to the job site with a cup of coffee in one hand and rolls of wallpaper under his other arm when a workman approached.
“Morning, Michael, is that the paper we’re hanging in the main bedroom?” asked one of the wallpaper hangers.
“Morning Jimmy, yes, this is as close as I could come to what was originally there. Sure hopes she likes it,” Michael replied.
“Sure hope who likes it?” asked Jimmy.
Before Michael could answer, a voice came from the foyer area of the new house.
“Hoping I like it, Michael?” a female voice asked.
Michael turned to see Sharon White, the newly hired in-house decorating consultant for the construction company.
“Sharon, good morning,” Michael said.
Sharon walked into the house, stepping over loose floorboards and buckets of plaster.