(no subject)
The Christmas Train this year was a big, fat, sad failure. This was my tenth year of taking the 12:15 #506 train from Portland to Tacoma, letting me have multiple Christmases with multiple families. For ten years I've been a part of this great group of old people, who adopted me on my very first solo train ride way back in fifth grade. They had been riding the Christmas Train together for decades. At the Portland station, we would tell the conductors we wanted to be on the special Christmas car, and they would seat us all together. There was food and drink, Secret Santa with names drawn a year in advance, and general merriment. When they first adopted me into the group we filled the entire car -- last year there were only 15 of us, mostly elderly folk. This Christmas, however, there were only three of us -- Hilda, Glenn and I were the only ones who showed up. One woman came to the train station to tell the conductors about the deaths of her mother, father and aunt who always rode the Christmas train, and Hilda knew of two more that had passed away. This left five dead and seven unaccounted for, who I'm hoping just didn't show up because of the bad weather. It was very depressing because the Christmas Train was always my favorite part of Christmas. I spend Christmas Eve with my stepmom's family, Christmas morning with Dad and Alice in Portland, then Christmas night with my mom's family in Tacoma. The first few years I worried about having to put festivities on hold to sit quietly for three hours on the train, but I never ended up having to stop partying. Now, after ten whole years, my favorite part of the holiday season has come to an end.