It's a family day.

Don't kick out family.

There's a pub in Portland called The Horse Brass. It’s an English pub in all the best ways, and you can’t help but know it. It’s not just the name, but post-and-beam construction of the common room, the menu, the dartboards, and even the candies and shortbread and other touches of home they import and sell to folks who lived in the UK before Portland and miss it. They also have the best honey-horseradish mustard. One day I found out that they let you buy it in a little jar for $5. This was 1991? 1992? Five bucks meant something then. I bought it anyway. Absolutely delicious.

So my friends and I loved THB. One Christmas afternoon we head down there on a whim. Probably not open, but what's a group of friends to do? We were all a bunch of Jews and atheists and atheist Jews anyway. Half of us didn't even celebrate Christmas growing up, and those that did never held it sacred. And hey, the pub was walking distance from the friends' house where we were all hanging out. Being Portland, the snow is maybe 3-4 inches deep where it's been thrown out of the way of the sidewalks, and the walks themselves are entirely clear. No reason not to give it a try.

We get close and there are lights on and laughter inside. They're open! I grab the door, give it a tug and the old thing opens up on the warmest, most welcoming pub air. The 6 of us pile in. Some nice fellow gestures at a swathe of tables in the 90% empty restaurant. We grab a seat. The only other folks in the place are a large group of UK expats dominating the tables under the west wall of the place, on the far side of the pub from the dartboards. They all seem to know each other well. None of them are even glancing our way.

The server asks us what we'd like, drops our tab at the bar and then grabs something hefty and less than a foot long. He heads to the front door and locks up; a key must have been on the thing. Immediately we realize that we've dropped in on a private party. On Christmas Day. We catch the server's eye and explain that we had no idea and we'll be happy to leave and were sorry to have intruded.

He was having none of it. "It's a family day," he said. "We don't kick out family."

"But we're not family," I started.

"You're here, aren't you?" he asked. I didn't have a response. None of us did. A minute later I had a pint of cider in front of me. We stayed for much longer than we meant to, and a few of the expats came to visit our table and asked us what brought us down. We all had reasons that boiled down to the fact that this was a good place, with good food, good beer and cider, and it’s in our neighbourhood -- maybe a dozen blocks from my place, but only two from my friends' where we were before we came.

One of them looked around at the dark wood posts and beams, and asked, "It is a neighbourly place, isn't it?" Everyone agreed, my friends and the expats.

"And there isn't anyplace with their mustard," I added. “I’m always wanting to take it home.”

"Oh, you like the mustard?" said one. He called over the server again and told us to get some mustard, asked us how many jars. We decided on four and made noise about paying. I guessed he was the owner because he wouldn't hear of it and seemed to have the clout to make that stick. "It's Christmas. How would it be if we didn't give you anything?"

We left all the cash we had on our table when we left. I'll never believe the owner kept any past the bill to pay for the mustard. All the extra would have gone to the bartender and the one server working that day.

"I'll see you next year!" called the owner as we headed to the door. He did.