I’m proud to continue a tradition that my parents started when I was young.
For me, I grew up in a really nice house with great central air conditioning and plenty of other great stuff.
But for my parents, they grew up very poor. There were even times for both of them that they weren’t able to get new clothes or even enough to eat at times. Of course, they grew up inside homes that didn’t have residential HVAC. But they both made the best of their circumstances, got to college and came out with an education. That led to careers for both of them and a nice lifestyle as well. But my parents were always keenly aware of where they came from. And they really did put their money where their mouth was. When it came to Christmas, they made sure they had a little envelope full of cash for all the service people in our lives. That was the milkman, the postman and even the HVAC technician. I don’t have a milkman anymore and we have a post office box. But I like to continue the tradition of these cash envelopes at Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, I laid one on the HVAC technician who was here doing the heating maintenance on our gas furnace. He thought I was paying him for the HVAC maintenance. I explained to him that I was just grateful for all his efforts year in and year out when it came to taking care of the heating and cooling equipment in our home. This absolutely blew that guy’s mind.