lizkat
Watching March roll out real winter
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2020
- Posts
- 7,341
My family managed to dodge that sort of hassle because my dad's folks had retired out west where they had always summered, and that set of grandparents generally hosted Christmas for my uncles, aunt and cousins who lived variously in California, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas.
But Christmas for me and most of my immediate family back in the day was always a command performance at my maternal grandparents' home. And I do mean command performance. It was not ok to not show up. It was "understood" that there were no excuses short of being hospitalized or dead. So, I remember some truly exasperating trips using public transportation before I had a car.
We loved our grandparents and had spent lots of summers and holidays with them, but managing to get there sometimes was quite a project once we kids were out of college and working various places... especially since winter started earlier in upstate NY than it does now, and the snowfalls around Christmas surely challenged more than just Santa and his reindeer.
One time a college roommate said "hell it's snowing why not just say you can't make it," but my response was that if I said that, my grandmother would send my uncle to fetch me and he was the kind of driver could make the average heroic no-plows-no-problem New England bus driver look like a coward. So I pressed on with some marathon set of bus connections.
That uncle once drove me to the wedding rehearsal of my sister during a March blizzard when my flight upstate from NYC had been cancelled. We did some breathtaking 360s on ice under snow into drifts in a couple places enroute, and I am sure we survived only because no one else was stupid enough to be on the roads. "Why are we even doing this?" I asked as we shoveled out for the second time.
"Because your grandmother said I would be happy to come get you," he said, rolling eyes but grinning. "And, I am." My grandma was a force of nature and love. She ever even raised her voice, either... but she could give you a look would put the fear of God back in that part of your mind that recognizes great danger.
Anyway at Christmas times my dad and his second wife always hosted her kids and her mother even farther upstate in NY where they lived, so everyone had someplace they had to get to for the occasion. We were close to our step-siblings though, so at least some us did join the upstate crowd before New Year's for a second round of festivities.
Nowadays and particularly during covid, we have celebrations on hold as far as in-person gatherings go. Anyway in the past 20 years or so we tend to have Christmas together in March or April when the roads are clear and the crush of traffic is no more than on an average weekend. I'm fine with that. The time approaching the solstice is so gloomy and the time between there and Christmas so short that I'm rarely really in a holiday mood until at least mid-January... even though as of this evening I've got a summer playlist of rock music cranked up pretty good to wish 2021's shortest day farewell. Looking forward to return of sunsets after 5pm for god's sake.
Wishing Happy Christmas to all who celebrate!
Needle through the groin since I have lymphedema in my right arm. The most pain came from the blood pressure cuff. (I hate those things!)
I'll be going up to Tahoe the day after Christmas and staying through New Year's. 