Brettuns Village Trunks & Leather
Old Trunks, New Leather. All from Maine.
December 24, 2016
Hello and Merry
Christmas Eve to all of our newsletter subscribers! Happy Holidays,
Season’s Greetings, and on and on to cover all the different ways we celebrate
at this time of year, globally. You’re all included in our wish for
peace, joy, happiness, good looking antique trunks and wonderful leathers,
world-wide. Did we cover everybody? I think so.Not sure if you noticed but
Christmas is tomorrow. I know this to be fact because I can’t find
my dog. Miss Indie the Intelligent, our amazing black lab, hasn’t
been seen since last evening. She’s not lost or anything; it’s just
that our daughters are back in Maine for a few days, and apparently they
scratch ears better upstairs here at the house than do those of us who
hang out on the first floor. Can’t find the dog? That means
the galliwags are home, and that’s where you’ll find The Dog. Makes
it feel like Christmas.Looks like here in central
Maine we can expect some more snow today, but our snow has been in place
for a while now; White Christmas, guaranteed. Makes it nice.
We’ll be heading toward town later today for a few last minute gifts, as
each of us finalizes our plans for what we want to give. If you’ve
been on our newsletter list for a while you may recall that I don’t spend
much time on what I want to give – the ideas always seem to come along
rather naturally. I spend too much time thinking about what I want
to receive, or, to be more clear, what I hope to blue blazes I DON’T receive.
You know, the Annual List of Stuff I Don’t Want for Christmas. What?
You thought I’d forgotten? Bah.Been busy hereabouts, thanks
to you, our customers, and we sure do appreciate it. Thanks for your
business this year, and for the part you play in helping our little online
empire continue to expand. 2016 has brought us a bunch of changes
here at BrettunsVillage, including a soon-to-be-launched new website that
will make transactions with us much easier, especially if you’re outside
of the USA or need express shipping within the USA. We’re looking
at a mid-late January launch date right now – I’ll let you know.
We also purchased a whopper of a barn in Livermore, Maine, smack in the
center of the part of Livermore that’s known as Brettuns Village.
It’s not a coincidence – this is where a couple of us started this business
back in 1994. So now, BrettunsVillage.com will be in Brettuns Village.
It just seems right, don’t you think? It’ll take us a while to get
moved – probably during one of our four weeks of summer so that we
can enjoy slapping mosquitoes whilst we lug boxes to and fro.OK I can’t stand it anymore
so here goes: Did you buy Star Shower Motion? What were you thinking?
Just one thing to plug in? Just one light bulb? Where’s the
fun in that? They’re not truly Christmas lights if they don’t involve
some mid-level cursing and hurling. You know, whipping the old holiday
light strings around because they won’t come on, and that’s because you
failed to find the one bulb out of 14,000 of the little buggers that has
one of those hair-like filaments they call ‘wires’ out of place by about
half of a millimeter. Cursing and hurling. Two essential parts of
the holiday season. Star Shower Motion? No thanks, not for
me.This next item I’m going
to mention is a weird one, because I don’t think any of you were going
to give me My Pillow this year anyway. I can’t decide if it’s the
annoying chorus line singing “My pillooooooow – dot – com’ or the way that
guy’s arms just won’t stay still for a split second. I’ll tell you
one more thing – I’m not so sure the National Sleep Federation exists at
all. Maybe it has just one member, and his arms won’t stay still?
Don’t get me this for Christmas, OK? I sleep just fine, which may
have more to do with the work day hours around this clam stand than it
does with whatever pillow I manage to hit at the end of the day.Here’s a fast one: Cologne.
For some reason this seemed pretty important to me back in the 1970s, but
somewhere along the line it hit me that I don’t splash on Bait (as my buds
and I used to call it) ever (evah in Maine). Look, just about everybody
has an allergy or sensitivity so I don’t think it’ll be too much longer
before you’ll get arrested for wearing that stuff out in public anyway,
so leave this off the shopping list. No Stink-um, as my Dad used
to call it.You wanted to give me what
this year? Wall to wall carpeting for the new house? Look,
that’s wicked nice of you, but no, no thanks. Hardwood floors for
us, because I made the mistake of looking at photos online of what dust
mites look like. That’s a horrific looking beast right there, something
Yukon Cornelius would lead around on a chain. Out with the carpet,
in with the hardwood, and poof – all of your free time issues are solved.
You’ll be sanding and varnishing floors annually. It’s great exercise.Listening to much Christmas
music lately? I guess we all have our favorites. I like listening
to Louis Armstrong’s Christmas album, some Ella Fitzgerald now and then.
Andy Williams. Classics, mostly. What I do not like and
would rather not receive in gift form would be any modern remake of the
classic holiday songs where the singer feels compelled to ‘jazz it up’
or ‘make it more fun’ and if they utter that ‘Ha!’ sound even once in the
song they’re done. No thank YOU.Now that this letter sounds
like one big complaint I might as well throw in a couple of quick hitters:
Sausage with cheese inside? No. More election news?
No. Onward. Reading books on some sort of electronic device?
No. I like books – the way the pages are bound, the cover, the forward,
the information about the publisher. I like lugging a book around.
A network inside my vehicle. No. When I drive it may surprise
you to know that I actually watch the road and the other drivers and that
moose down in the swale and the frost heave just ahead and that car with
the Massachusetts license plate that somehow ended up in the hayloft of
the main barn over to Norlands. I don’t need to surf the web or buy
new camouflage waders on eBay in the middle of my daily commute.
Nope.OK, enough whining.
I realize I haven’t left you with much time to go get me something anyway.
Even if you fought the crowds today you’d have to drive it here yourself.
That sure would be nice of you. We’ll be here today on the shores
of Brettuns Pond, which is covered now with almost a foot of ice so we’ll
be out there traipsing around this afternoon, letting the dog run, trying
not to slip on the ice and end up bumpkin over teakettle. Dog would
love to see you.
Come on up.Merry Christmas from Brettuns
Village, and may you find those moments this holiday that stay with you
for the rest of your days. I’m hoping that you get to spend time
with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues. And a dog.Thanks-
Churchill Barton
Animal Welfare Officer
BrettunsVillage.Com
Upcountry in Maine
The new digs
