Stay Out of There...That's the Living Room!

"Stay out of there...that's the Living Room!"

Did you ever hear that growing up?  I realize some of you may not have had one of those growing up but you may have SAID that to your children because you probably had one in your "grown up" house.

I remember ours...it was the first room you came in to at the front of the house.  Therefore, I always had to enter the house through the carport.  The living room (which I always thought was an odd name for it, since no one ever got to go in it) was reserved for, as I remember it, preachers or other church folk and insurance men....even relatives weren't allowed to stay in there...they could pass through it's hallowed walls but that's as far as it went.  Maybe that's one reason I went into the insurance business...because I secretly wanted to get to go into the living room.

Oh, yeah...I do remember one other vistor to the living room.....Santa Claus.  He not only left gifts under the tree we had in the living room (because it was at the front of the house, we put the tree there so the lights could be seen...which didn't really matter because we lived half a mile from the highway).....but he also visited me once when I was about 5.  The living room was always a magical place for me after that.

Living rooms have fallen from grace, I think.  Most newer houses are more "family-friendly" and have skipped the formal living room in favor of the more casual "family room."  But I will never forget that forbidden place (to me) where only the most important guests were allowed to venture......