I thought nothing would ever change in this house Tata and Woody have lived in since they left Buffalo, New York, back in the late 1960s, but they redid the floor and had the walls painted.

Nothing else changed, not the stove, not the dishwasher, the countertops, or these old chairs my family played pinochle in while smoking up a storm. I think they all smoked back then.

In the 1970s, it was pretty frequent that family would all come up to Santa Barbara for weekends with the Burns. Tata and Woody would buy up a bunch of Tri-tips before anyone else really knew what that was, marinate it, and then grill it out back across from the jacuzzi. Back then, a jacuzzi was a luxury and seriously uncommon.

We, kids, could take their bikes out or head down to the nearby school that had public tennis courts or sit in the living room and watch their fancy TV that had a remote control.

Time for us to say goodbye as we pulled away with a car full of toilet paper, juice, soda, paper towels, dish soap, pens, and other stuff Tata pilfered from her job, and probably some cash she threw at us to cover gas. This was our first time spending Christmas with them, but it won’t be our last.

It’s been foggy/cloudy all day, so we didn’t spend too much time here at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

We did spend a good amount of time in Covina, stopping for dinner at my old favorite, Clearman’s North Woods Inn; I’ll never tire of their amazing salads. It was late before we ever pulled into our parking spot at home, but it was a great weekend and well worth the effort.