Christmas in the Sticks

These last six years I have missed Christmas with my family. Shawn and I always seem to be lost on some adventure. This year we intended to spend the holiday in Vacaville. Then, airline tickets hit $800 bucks and we literally became stuck in the wild.

Christmas 2011 will always be memorable. This is the year we didn’t have a tree, until I found one in a plastic pot outside our housing complex and decided to borrow it. I think someone is intending to use it for a landscaping project. Hopefully, they won’t notice its absence. I decorated it with bows and packing string.

Also, I went to church for the first time in years. I couldn’t resist attending a Christmas eve service in the park’s old historic chapel. It is over 100 years old and the architecture is delicious! I felt as if I were walking through a Thomas Kincaid painting. Decorative windows flickered warmly with amber candle light and cast reflections that danced across the snow.

Feeling repented, we soon found ourselves playing cards and drinking cider in the Mammoth hotel. The most horrific Santa impersonator crashed the hotel lobby and off-set the holiday cheer. I had never witnessed kids, or a crowd, so apathetic to Santa Claus. It was entertaining watching parent’s force their rebellious kids to sit on Santa’s lap, so they could take a picture. What age did I rebel? Some of the non-English speaking tourists didn’t seem to understand who this big man in red was or why he was making a rucus in the hotel lobby. Their kids were indifferent and remained absorbed in the craft-making. It was a fascinating lesson in cultural differences. I drank my cider and watched everything.

No glazed ham, no turkey and gravy – no rum cake, pumpkin pie, or home-made fudge – just pizza in bed. We fell asleep watching Miracle on 34th Street. Although I missed my family, I was thankful to have spent such a memorable day with at least one person I love.

Christmas day, in the town of Gardiner, is another story.