How I'll be spending my Christmas vacation
Plans have been afoot for awhile and now they're settled: I'm leaving Christmas afternoon for Alaska and not coming home till January 9. Airfares were very expensive and leaving on Christmas Day saved us $250. So I'll be with my family at home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then with my mom and my brother and his family just after. It's going to be a very long day (on the plane around 4:45 p.m., arriving in Alaska just barely into the 26th, going over 4 time zones). I don't expect I'll be good for much on the 26th. I'll take my computer and be in touch from Anchorage; Mom says there's internet in the house in town. Of course there isn't at the cabin, where they don't have even electricity or running water. I'll be staying with Mom in town but visiting the cabin. I'm hoping for a second Christmas at the cabin with the candlelit tree. (It's safe if you do it right. You sit and watch, no walking around except the person in charge of the candles.)
We don't know if my older nephew, Lang, will be there for Christmas. He graduated from college with a degree in political science this spring and then spent the summer at Heifer International's farm and educational center in Arkansas. In September he flew into Washington and rode up to Mom's old house with me. It was so nice to be able to spend time with him and get to know him better. We winterized the cabin and I took home all the valuables. (Anybody want to buy an ugly Robert Rauschenberg lithograph cheap?) Lang took Mom's car and started on a driving trip on the East Coast, south to Kentucky, and now west to Colorado. He may make Anchorage by Christmas or he may stay in Seattle or somewhere else on the West Coast until spring or he may fly back to Anchorage if finances permit. He's been warned that the highway that runs through Canada and Alaska is difficult in the winter, and he's never driven in snow before! Mom's car is a Buick sedan, not exactly a winter-weather car.
Eve will be there; she's a senior in college, majoring in French and carrying nearly a 4.0. She has no idea what she'll do after she graduates! Maybe grad school. Right now she works in an Anchorage restaurant as a hostess, but she's so bright I can't see her doing that for long. And Robin, the youngest (nicknamed Puck), is in 7th grade (I think) and really shining as a homeschooler and Boy Scout. I can't wait to see them and my sister-in-law, Diane, who is incredibly competent and multitalented and sweet as the day is long, but with a spine of steel. Dorn is on sabbatical this year from being head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Alaska; I don't know what he'll be up to.
I'm hoping we can all go out to the frozen lake they took me and Lydia to back in 1995 when Lydia was not quite one. I remember sliding around on feet-thick ice full of air bubbles, pushing Lydia ahead of me because she couldn't walk yet. I'm glad I still have the boots I bought for that trip because no matter where we went or how long we were out, my feet were never cold. I've bought some long underwear and am thinking through the rest of my wardrobe; winter here has nothing on Alaska!
Sometime in the next week or so I'll wrap, box, and mail the presents I have for the Alaska family. I have everything except for one book for Puck and a blouse I'm making for Mom from fabric she picked out when we went shopping last Black Friday; those things will probably go in my suitcase. I may have to break my no-Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving rule for my wrapping party because Karl is adamant that the box go out no later than Thanksgiving. While I'm at it I may start to put up decorations, because I won't be able to enjoy them in late December. This is shaping up to be an unusual holiday.
We don't know if my older nephew, Lang, will be there for Christmas. He graduated from college with a degree in political science this spring and then spent the summer at Heifer International's farm and educational center in Arkansas. In September he flew into Washington and rode up to Mom's old house with me. It was so nice to be able to spend time with him and get to know him better. We winterized the cabin and I took home all the valuables. (Anybody want to buy an ugly Robert Rauschenberg lithograph cheap?) Lang took Mom's car and started on a driving trip on the East Coast, south to Kentucky, and now west to Colorado. He may make Anchorage by Christmas or he may stay in Seattle or somewhere else on the West Coast until spring or he may fly back to Anchorage if finances permit. He's been warned that the highway that runs through Canada and Alaska is difficult in the winter, and he's never driven in snow before! Mom's car is a Buick sedan, not exactly a winter-weather car.
Eve will be there; she's a senior in college, majoring in French and carrying nearly a 4.0. She has no idea what she'll do after she graduates! Maybe grad school. Right now she works in an Anchorage restaurant as a hostess, but she's so bright I can't see her doing that for long. And Robin, the youngest (nicknamed Puck), is in 7th grade (I think) and really shining as a homeschooler and Boy Scout. I can't wait to see them and my sister-in-law, Diane, who is incredibly competent and multitalented and sweet as the day is long, but with a spine of steel. Dorn is on sabbatical this year from being head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Alaska; I don't know what he'll be up to.
I'm hoping we can all go out to the frozen lake they took me and Lydia to back in 1995 when Lydia was not quite one. I remember sliding around on feet-thick ice full of air bubbles, pushing Lydia ahead of me because she couldn't walk yet. I'm glad I still have the boots I bought for that trip because no matter where we went or how long we were out, my feet were never cold. I've bought some long underwear and am thinking through the rest of my wardrobe; winter here has nothing on Alaska!
Sometime in the next week or so I'll wrap, box, and mail the presents I have for the Alaska family. I have everything except for one book for Puck and a blouse I'm making for Mom from fabric she picked out when we went shopping last Black Friday; those things will probably go in my suitcase. I may have to break my no-Christmas-music-before-Thanksgiving rule for my wrapping party because Karl is adamant that the box go out no later than Thanksgiving. While I'm at it I may start to put up decorations, because I won't be able to enjoy them in late December. This is shaping up to be an unusual holiday.