Our most recent first night was ten years ago, a move from a 500 square foot
log cabin to a new 2700 square foot frame house about 150' away. We (my now
wife, then partner) had lived happily as squatters, gasp, for ten years, no
running water or electricity, on what had been the outskirts of Whitehorse,
until the government in its wisdom decided to make proper little tax payers
of us wannabe outlaws. They offered us the land we'd considered ours, for
sweat equity, the catch being we had to build code houses, electricity,
plumbing, the works. Our intention was to go minimal, so as to keep our
carefree lifestyle, but that didn't last long (why build just a crawl space
when a basement would be so much more practical, and hardly cost any extra,
they said).

Anyway, we wound up with this relatively monstrous place, and when we moved
in, felt initially oppressed by all the empty space. We spent the first few
weeks camped out in the study, a cozy 10x12 room, that held most of our old
cabin furniture quite easily. After our agoraphobia waned, we gradually
occupied the remainder of the house, which now feels about as crowded as did
the cabin in days of old. Since we upgraded, a subdivision was built around
us, we put in a lawn, greenhouse etc. What was that about a carefree
lifestyle?

Signed, dopple your lebensraum, but not your fun

                John Callan wrote:

                We have moved enough to have discovered an odd behavior
pattern and grown it
                into a tradition.  In each house since 1975 in Australia, we
managed to somehow
                take possession of the house a day or two ahead of the
arrival of our
                possessions.  Thankfully we have always had fairly decent
camping equipment and
                this always became a matter of spreading out the sleeping
bags in the
                livingroom.  On the last two moves, the furniture had
arrived and was even set
                up, but the whole family chose to sleep in sleeping bags in
front of the
                fireplace.  This last move was the height of luxury...we did
it in the summer
                and there was no need for heat and we were far enough north
that the heat was
                not oppressive...you know, like when it gets into the mid
80's.

                I wonder if my ever so grown up married daughter has adopted
the same first
                night tradition?

                -jc