The end of Christmas

My family is endearingly crazy. ?I told them that I would do all the Christmas cooking and baking and they’d have to clean up. ?So they arrived bang on time: ? with washbuckets, cloths, ?rubber gloves, aprons and cleaning goods.?”That eco stuff you use doesn’t work unless you use it everyday.” ? Did I feel criticized? ?Nope. My cleaning lady says the same thing. ?And I am prepared to swallow pride and ego for a cleaning job.??We had a great dinner. Lots of candles and Christmas lights, lots of wine and?arguments?about movies. ??And the kitchen positively sparkled by the time I was able to get tup from the table. ? I wonder if they do walls and floors???What I didn’t know during all these celebrations was that every time I turned ?on the Christmas tree lights, I was turning on the sump pump. In the middle of winter with a devastating ?combination of snow and rain, pipes have already been damaged and burst a hole.????So the water in the dry well is sloshing in and out and has been since things thawed out before Christmas. There are times when I wonder about all of this. ?Get someone to come in a fix a broken pipe over Christmas and New Year’s? ?I think not.???Since the whole system was concocted by a madman, I now have to figure out how to turn off the sump pump. If ?you switch the lever to winter does that work? ?Of course not. ?I might just go and have a little lie down and read some more of my Christmas books. ????