Not about a B&B or Tivoli - but forgive me, I'm stuck in Christmas past. I heard on the news that shoppers have charged billions of dollars this year for holiday presents. I remembered that growing up we always had a Christmas Club. My mother would go to the bank, usually after Thanksgiving, and open Christmas Clubs for all six of the kids, herself and my father. The idea was every week you deposited fifty cents, and by the end of the year you had $25.00 to spend for gifts. A dollar club resulted in $50.00, two dollars would total to $100.00, but we always had the $25.00 Club. The banks always gave you something when you opened the club, a Santa decoration with the name of the bank imprinted on the back, or sometimes a paper bank that looked like a chimney with Santa going in. (You would be surprised at what these freebies go for on E-Bay today.) Anyway, each of us kids had our own money to spend. But the best story about a Christmas Club occurred when I was married with a baby living on Beacon Street. It was a four family apartment and we lived over Helen, a widow with two children, Judy my age and Danny, a little younger. Helen and I would sit on the porch, rocking in those metal chairs on the warm days. One day while we were chatting on the porch, Helen's friend Mildred came running down the hill, yelling for Helen. Mildred was a heavy woman, not very neat with food stains on the front of her dress and sometimes Helen would complain that she had a smell. This day she was waving a package and climbed the steps to the porch out of breath. She had photos to show Helen, and I soon saw they were pictures of her dead cat Whitey. Whitey was on a satin pillow, stretched stiff and not too good to look at, but next to Whitey was a big floral display, with "Rest in Peace" on it. Helen and I looked at the pictures, commented on how nice everything looked and then Helen asked, "Mildred, how much did those flowers cost you?" Mildred was quite poor and she was always trying to make ends meet. "Oh," Mildred said, "I'm going to take care of that right now. Whitey had a Christmas Club. I'm going to get the money out and pay the florist." "A Christmas Club?" asked Helen. "Yes", replied Mildred.."Whitey liked to buy me something special every Christmas" and off she went to the bank. Helen and I were both curious as to how she made out, and it was a good story. Mildred said she went to the teller and said she wanted to cash in Whitey's Christmas Club. The teller, thinking Whitey was a person, told her she would have to wait until Thanksgiving, but Mildred said that Whitey had died and wouldn't be needing the money to buy presents. The teller said that she needed a death certificate before she could give the money to her and Mildred asked how do I get one. The teller explained the funeral director could give this to her and Mildred answered we didn't use a funeral director, we buried Whitey in the back yard. Then, Mildred continued, the teller got the bank manager who knew Mildred and asked Mildred to explain about Whitey. At this time, Mildred pulled out the pictures of Whitey laid to rest. The bank manager stared at the photo for a long time, then passed it to the teller. The bank manager then told the teller to give whatever money was in the account to Mildred. "And he told me not to ever open an account for a cat again," Mildred said sadly. Helen and I had a good laugh about that for many days. There are no more Christmas Clubs. People are not expected to save before spending and I have to wonder how did the banks ever manage all those 25 cent accounts before we had computers. I wonder what Christmas would be like today if we all had only our Christmas Clubs to spend. And I wonder about the dog who inherited all that money from Helmsley, where does he keep all his money?