Well, the Christmas part of this holiday season is now history for 2013 and it was a wonderful time for the Reiss family. I have to admit it wasn’t like a Norman Rockwell painting, but it was fun although very hectic.

Malcolm and I are the only ones that stayed at home but Sarah and Rene and their three children came on the Saturday after Christmas, which gave us another whole day to celebrate with all of our loved ones! On Christmas day, Tobi and Heidi and their boys came to our house and Polly, Russ and their two boys came, too. When our entire clan was here, we went to our good friends the Wilson’s for a wonderful Christmas dinner and celebration. Their children are the youngest of the lot, 5 and 7 which made the day for me, just a little more special.

New Year’s Eve really is just another night at our house. Although our 47th anniversary is now past, I have to tell you that I don’t think in those 47 years Malcolm and I have ever gone out to a frenzied celebration. I am not sure if we have even stayed up to watch the “ball drop.” But I have thought a lot about the coming year and hope that it is more people friendly than the last one. And I know that for me the new year has already started a lot better. I feel better, am able to get around better and have a new and terrific attitude about the coming year. So to all of you, have a very Happy New Year. We deserve it,

All of us these days have to deal with the banks, and I am anxious to share with you what happened to us in late November, bank-wise! This past summer we sold our old house on Cape Cod, and we were thrilled to sell it to our neighbor, who we know very well and really like. He and Malcolm decided that they would make arrangements to send us a payment for the house once a month. The plan was that Patrick would have the payment taken out of his account from the Cape Cod 5 bank and transfer it to our account at the People’s United Bank in Waitsfield. And as I understand it, for two months it worked wonderfully.

Then because Malcolm always checks our bank statements, (which I never do and if this had been me, I would have never have found it out!) he found that there had been some weird error. Well over $2,000 had been taken out of our account, which made us overdrawn on quite a number of payments we owed. So, I called Cape Cod 5 and asked them what was what? And, of course, they had no idea. Nor did our bank in Waitsfield. So, I called the fraud division of our bank and I immediately called Cape Cod 5 and told them what I had done. And I believe because they didn’t want a fraud group to check on their bank and their practices, they got to work on the problem.

Well, this very morning, they called me at 8:30am to tell me that they had figured out what happened. It turns out that when Patrick signed the papers to have this transfer happen every month, the bank had given him the wrong papers and so the error was theirs! And they assured me that it was now taken care of and it wouldn’t happen ever again!

Now, my question is this, if you or I had made such a big error and especially one that included a bank, would an “I’m sorry” be good enough? We would probably be apologizing from jail! Wouldn’t you think that they would offer us more than an apology? I can’t tell you how upset we were and how hard we had to work to figure out what had happened.

I guess that our reward is that the problem was finally found and straightened out, at least we hope it is. It would appear to me that there are definitely two different systems at work here. One for you and me and one for the big banks. And if I want to give you some important advice for this New Year, it would be to look at your bank statements every single month and make sure that there are no errors… especially ones that affect you and aren’t your fault! I shutter to think how many “mistakes” by the banks are going undiscovered and how much it costs the innocent banking customer.

On a cheerier note, have a very Happy New Year. Now that I am old, I firmly believe that we all need to be happy and make our futures happy ourselves. Don’t wait for the government to make your future brighter because, these days, this is just not going to happen. See you next year, so live, love and be happy, it is the best new year’s gift you can give yourself and your family and friends.