Christmas on the Road…

As we neared our eighth Christmas on the road it had me thinking about how Christmas has changed for us. No longer is it a holiday that we long for and very much look forward to. We use to deck the house in Texas with lights and decorations. The Christmas tree would be ceremoniously erected and adorned with all the ornaments we had gathered over the years.Multiple presents were wrapped and placed under the tree in the days leading up to the big day. It is quite different now…

Yes we still put up lights and yes we have a little “tree” we adorn with memories but we now only buy gifts for the grandchildren as I believe Christmas is more for children than the adults. Obviously not everyone feels the same as I, but it works for us. However one thing we look forward to on Christmas is the annual visit by our daughter Katie. She has visited every year on Christmas making the holiday a little more special to us that I think it would otherwise be.

This year she brought Brooks (her new husband) with her for his first visit to southern Florida. Brooks spent his first Christmas away from his family to spend time with us. His family is the polar opposite of us as they go all out for Christmas. Gift giving is a big event and celebrated by all. I wondered how Brooks would handle how much less celebrated Christmas is in our new lifestyle.

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate with most of the plans we had for Katie and Brooks visit. The first thing we did was change the day we were going to have Christmas Dinner. While we may not celebrate Christmas like we used to, we have not changed in the way we like to have a big Christmas Dinner, So instead of December 25th we opted to have Christmas Dinner the day after they arrived five days before Christmas because of rainy and chilly weather.

With the weather being crappy it was a perfect day to spend indoors preparing the feast. An added benefit was that Katie and Brooks would be here to help us feast on all the leftovers which such a huge meal creates. A friend loaned us a turkey roaster so we could cook a 16 pound turkey (the smallest I could find). We made all the appropriate side dishes such as our southern cornbread dressing, deviled eggs, candied yams, green bean casserole and of course mashed potatoes with giblet gravy.

We had a grand meal and by having it on a different day we were free to spend the day at the beach on Christmas Day when the weather much, much nicer. Besides spending the day on the beach we filled Katie and Brook’s time attending parties, playing cornhole, shuffleboard and billiards.  Brooks met all our friends and they all decided he passed the test and is indeed a good match for Katie. He was such a good sport during their stay and we so appreciated having them visit.

The week sped by and we took them to the airport on the 26th. We notched yet another Christmas on our Road of Retirement and are looking forward to celebrating the New Year with our friends in IBE…

NOTE: We are now at our winter site for the season in Bonita Springs, Florida…