Christmas Escape Time in shiny things

In keeping with my Always Avoid All Possible Social Interaction mindset, I am happy that we are (yet again) escaping to Charleston for Christmas. This is our newish tradition- Baker B was insisting tonight that we’ve been doing this for ten years, which I found hard to believe, so I checked Flickr, Keeper Of All Past Events, and found this will be our sixth Charleston Christmas. We went last year, and in 2013, 2011, 2010 , 2009 and 2008. (SEVENTH. I’ve counted this about five times and clearly need to go to bed. Also, maybe it’s not such a newish tradition.) So we’ve only missed 2012 and I’m pretty sure that was because we got snowed in. No chance of that this year- it has been bizarrely warm. Like mid-60s. Which is totally fine with me, as well as being extremely unusual. It has been very rainy too this last week, but .... it’s not snow! Hooray!!

So anyhow, we had actually planned to spend the night tonight at Baker B’s mom’s house, where his brother, SIL and sister’s boyfriend are (his sister died of a brain tumor years ago, and her long-time boyfriend still spends holidays with us, as well as coming up from Atlanta every time Baker B’s brother is down from Baltimore. Which is wonderful -we all love him) but to my not-very-nice glee, Baker B decided he’d rather not. His back has been bothering him just enough for him to complain and worry about it, and if everyone else is there we sleep in his old room which has The Mattress From Hell. If the sister’s boyfriend is there he always sleeps in the room we sleep in if he’s NOT there, which has a much better mattress. If we sleep on Mattress From Hell Baker B’s back might REALLY hurt and we can’t have that right before Charleston. Also we’re both trying to avoid sugar overload and that’s unavoidable at his mom’s house, AND the one niece who is coming this year won’t be there till Saturday. All of which means it makes much more sense to just come through on our way back from Charleston. When we’ll be relaxed and happy and then have the excuse to come back home after a nice visit because we don’t want to leave the cats alone one more night.

So we’re yet again managing to miss most of the Holiday Family Madness. Go us!! I visited my dad last weekend and took presents for my brother and his kids and kids’ kids - pretty much the only presents we do these days– so we’re basically done. And yet, as I was mentioning on another diarist’s page, I STILL feel stressed out about Christmas. So will be really happy to get away to the warm (even warmer!) coast and see waves and ocean and drink beer at the beach bar and walk all over town.

And I really need to get to bed so I can get up in a timely manner tomorrow. I’ll leave you with my two long-time favorite Christmas songs. Because it is not Christmas till you listen to Merry Christmas From The Family and The Christians and The Pagans about ten times!

Last updated December 24, 2015