Christmas 2022
Abby and Sandy are in the Christmas spirit
Although we love to travel, we usually stay home around the Christmas holidays. Flights are expensive and jam packed, and so are the airports. On top of that, bad weather always seems to cause lots of delays. Sometimes the airports in Denver or Chicago are even completely shut down and people are stuck there. It seems like a good time to avoid travel. You know what they say about New Year's Eve - it's the night that only amateurs go out to party. I've always felt the same way about traveling at Christmas - only the amateurs do it.
On top of all of that, with lots of complications for travel because of the pandemic and the Omicron surge being at its height, this year looked like a good time to spend Christmas and New Years at home.
Sandy is a lot braver and tougher than I am when it comes to travel though. She does like to visit her family around Christmas but she usually goes earlier in December. Since her Dad's birthday is in the middle of the month, she tends to plan her trips around that rather than Christmas or New Years Day. That's what she did this year and she took her trip back to Wisconsin after the semester ended at the University of Idaho. That way she was back before the Christmas travel rush really got going.
This time she tried something a little different. Her parents moved into senior living this fall at Kettle Park in Stoughton, Wisconsin. There is an apartment on site that visitors can rent by the night and that's where she stayed. She said that it worked out well. She was on the premises but had her own space, and her parents did as well. She said it is the way to go for future trips she takes as long as she plans ahead and is able to reserve it.
Sandy talks to Viviana about Santa Claus
Once Sandy was back we had a nice time at home. Mostly it was just our pack: Abby, Sandy and me. Sandy did her usual excellent job decorating the house for Christmas. She also found a company that did outside decorations. They did a great job and the house really looked nice. I certainly didn't miss balancing on the ladder hanging lights outside. She made sure the house looked festive both inside and out.
We did have some friends over. On Christmas Eve Mary Beth and Laura and John came over. Sandy made lasagna and we had lots of good food and wine. The next day we had our present opening session, which took most of the morning. We must have been good since there were a lot of presents. I got some good stuff: wargames, books, PC games, classes, tshirts, and more. The wargames were mostly American Civil War, as was the class from The Great Courses. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the subject because I plan to go to Baltimore in the spring to visit my sons. While I am there I hope to visit at least one battlefield site, probably Antietam or Gettysburg.
After Christmas we had a visit from our friends Ivan and Norma. They live in Ogden but were in town visiting family. I worked with Ivan for several years at the University of Idaho and we had been working together before Christmas to fix my Blackbird PCs. They brought along Viviana, their six month old daughter. We had only seen her once before last fall. She was growing fast!
We had a good trip to Bonaire to start December. Sandy got to visit family back in the midwest. Then we had a nice Christmas at home. It was a good end to the year and we are looking forward to more good things in 2022.
