My wife and I are alone this Christmas Day, but our kids will be arriving from out of state for a late “Christmas” on Saturday. I’m greatly looking forward to that. This has led me to muse about our good fortune, which is also very bad luck in a way. My wife and I were both born and raised in San Jose. We married in 1980 and bought our first house together in 1981. It cost less than $200K, which was pricey then. Fortunately I owned a house I’d bought when I was single, and the increased equity from that house was sufficient for a down payment on a house in what was then unincorporated, but later became Los Altos. It’s a three-bedroom tract house that would be considered ordinary middle-class housing virtually anywhere in the U.S. But then Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley. Everything in my neighborhood now sells for at least three million, and most for over four million. That makes us rich on paper, but it’s still a three-bedroom tract house from the 1950s and we live much as we did when my wife had to cut coupons. So our good fortune is that we can afford to live in this wonderful area and have financial security. Our kids will inherit millions and they and their kids will have financial security. But the mixed blessing part is that we almost never see them. They can’t afford to live near us, or at least they have made the rational choice to live someplace where housing costs wouldn’t strangle their ability to enjoy a normal life. Of course, we could move to be near one of them, but they live thousands of miles apart from each other and we would have to leave our home and friends, doctors, etc. we’ve accumulated over decades. I’m not complaining, really, as I feel fortunate. But the point of my musing is simply that old saw: money doesn’t buy happiness. Relish and nourish your family life and don’t be in headlong pursuit of more money. Merry Christmas.