Von Trapps are reunited, without the singing

When Sam von Trapp, the grandson of Maria, the singing nun made famous by"The Sound of Music," graduated from college, his father offered him a deal: Sam could do whatever he wanted for 10 years before he had to return home here to run the family's ski lodge.

His father started calling him to come home after six years.

When von Trapp finally returned to take over from his father, Johannes, he had had quite a decade: teaching skiing in Aspen, modeling for Ralph Lauren, surfing in Chile and even making People magazine's America's Top 50 Bachelors list in 2001. Recently, he sat in a dark office at the Trapp Family Lodge, the inn his grandmother started, trying to decide what to do with some old curtains.

It is hard for anyone to untangle family history and allegiances during the holidays. When your last name is von Trapp, and Americans claim you as part of their own legacy, that task is just that much harder.

That legacy weighs on von Trapp even as he considers something as mundane as curtains.