When Christmas Isn’t Home

Back in our younger days when we lived in Florida and had to entertain crowds of friends and relatives at Christmas, we used to rent an oceanfront condo for the week. We’d decorate the condo instead of the house, and have our Christmas there. Not being a big fan of doing a lot of actual decorating myself (if I had my d’ruthers all I’d have are pegs on the wall and bare furniture), and given the fact that as clown-elves we were usually working exhausting mall shifts right through Christmas Eve, this worked out fine for me.

Working at malls isn’t the same thing as shopping at malls. Which I never do, because everything at the mall costs three times what it’s worth so that mall shops can pay rent on the high-dollar property and hire expensive entertainers like us to bring in the crowds. I’ve always been of the strong opinion that elves should be able to postpone Christmas until New Year’s without suffering any ’spirit’ penalties (and coincidentally cashing in on all the after-Christmas sales when everything costs half or less of what it cost the day before Christmas). But of course it’s never actually works out that way.

Then 15 years ago our son died, our business (he was a partner) collapsed, and we moved our broken hearts to a small mountain cabin to mend and figure out a way to start over. Our daughter and her 2-year old son moved with us, and we’ve been here ever since (and we adopted a few along the way). Until this year we’ve always decorated the cabin – it’s definitely made for Christmas! – even if we were planning to be elsewhere for the actual holidays.

Continue reading »

Filed under Crafts, Decorating, Family Gatherings, Family Life, Holidays | Comment (1)