Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

Before Christmas, I wasn’t too bummed about spending it away from home for the third year in a row. I survived (and enjoyed) previous Christmases spent skiing in New Mexico and feasting with other journalist orphans in Casper. The actual holiday stretched weeks, brown boxes from friends and relatives arriving weeks before the holiday and into January. I made it home for Thanksgiving both years with some good luck and a one-way ride as far as Colorado from my sister.

Thanksgiving at home didn’t happen this year. Plane tickets were expensive, my sister’s schedule didn’t align with mine and Josh’s dad, stepmom and stepsisters decided to drive to Wyoming for the weekend. I hosted my first Thanksgiving and proved once again I am my mother’s daughter.

Perfect turkey. (Nov. 24)

We served way too many appetizers, including $40 worth of cheese, and enjoyed leftovers for a whole week afterward. We drank wine and played games and watched movies. We were too full for dessert (pumpkin-apple and French silk pies, a la mode) but ate it anyway.

A few weeks before Christmas, I found out family from Virginia that I hadn’t seen in years were driving home. I scrambled to find a plane ticket: $650-800 to fly out of Casper. Flights from Denver were a little cheaper, but I couldn’t afford booking a $350 ticket in the case I-25 closed and I never made my flight. And I didn’t have $800 for a guaranteed flight.

So Christmas at home didn’t happen, again. We ended up driving to New Mexico for a long weekend with Josh’s family. Of course, Nola came with and she behaved so well during the 10ish hour car ride.

Outtake from the Christmas card photo shoot. (Dec. 12)

And when I called my mom’s house where everyone was gathering on Christmas day, no one answered the phone. I called three cell phones before my brother answered, roaring laughter in the background.

They were doing the white elephant gifts, he explained. Apparently, in the Christmases I missed, my family started a new tradition. At that moment, I made a vow to go home next year, no matter what, even if it is only for two days.

Although I’ve done a good job of finding family around the holidays to celebrate with, nothing beats going home.

Has it really been more than a week since Christmas?

Clint checks the turkey. It was done. [Dec. 25]

Christmas truly has become a season for me, beginning the day after Thanksgiving when I buy and wrap 90 percent of my gifts and ending a week into January when cards and packages stop trickling in. The weeks in between offer parties, treats and warm, fuzzy moments that make you say, “It feels like Christmas.”

The guys might kill me for writing this, but Christmas night had several of those moments. Two sports guys hosted the journalist orphans for turkey with all the fixin’s.

It’s not Christmas without oysters.

It seemed Christmas was white everywhere but this part of Wyoming. Everyone else got snow except us.

The dry weather helped me get down to Colorado and Arizona, to continue on to Missouri and Kansas. It also allowed me to return safely to a very snowy Casper.

The week away was eventful and uneventful at the same time. Arizona was all about the Insight Bowl, but Josh and I also explored Phoenix, spent time with the illustrious Ryan Gibbons, shopped used book stores, hiked through a cactus forest and visited the new Musical Instrument Museum.

Phoenix Mountains Preserve [Dec. 30, 2010]

In Missouri we both worked New Year’s Eve — I finished a 50-inch legislative preview and he compiled a “best of” photo gallery in the car. We both have a hard time not working during vacations.

Friends hosted a casual New Year’s Eve dinner of fondue and champagne before we shuffled to the Power and Light District. We only stayed long enough to watch an imitation ball drop and greedy people dive after cash confetti shot from cannons. Just like last year, we were in PJs, eating pizza before 2.

Also like last year, we spent New Year’s Day lounging on the couch, watching the Jersey Shore marathon.

Holidays don’t have to be extravagant to be celebrated. Vacation doesn’t have to be exciting to be vacation.

Hanukkah has come and gone, celebrated with good friends and an excellent brisket/latke dinner.

mmm latkes, best with homemade applesauce.

This will be the second year of my mail-order Christmas, with various packages arriving every few days. Last year, I put them under the tree for a couple days until my mom told me I should just open them.

My first gift came Wednesday but before I could open it, I made myself clean and finish decorating. The snowman bell door hanger never made it off the doorknob, so the 3-foot tree and wreath were all I had to do. Also, I keep the lights and ornaments on the tree when it goes in the box for the rest of the year. Low maintenance decorating always preferred. I’d rather spend my free time baking goodies for the newsroom.

I didn’t bake these. But I helped decorate and eat them!

These I did make: Kolaczki for a coworker who pined for a Polish bakery.

Last Christmas was the first I didn’t spend with family in Illinois. Plane tickets out of Casper were ridiculously expensive and I didn’t have enough days off to make a trek down to the Denver airport worth it.

I drove to New Mexico and you know what, it was fine. I missed the family time, but there was enough Christmas (snow, fires in the fireplace, gingerbread houses) to make it memorable.

Christmas and New Year’s Day are on weekends this year, which means I can take them in the same week. And Josh happens to have some of those days off, too. A Christmas miracle! Because if there’s anything harder than a journalist trying to take vacation it’s a journalist trying to take vacation around another journalist’s vacation schedule.

For that reason, the best I could do was Wyoming for Christmas, Tempe for the Mizzou/Iowa bowl game and somewhere in Kansas for New Year’s Eve. It’d be nice if there was some snow in there.