It had been seventeen years since I participated in the "Annual Christmas Shop Early and Avoid the Crowds" expedition. It had been our custom years ago to alternate between Lancaster, PA and Williamsburg, VA. It seems that in the past few years Lancaster has been winning as the place to go. Over dinner, we began to reminisce about those past trips. Some had gone on to a better life, while others gave it up to the aches and pains of old age, and others to taking the easy way and sending checks and gift cards to family members. And that is okay...whatever fits your life style. Maybe the rest of us are the ones with a problem. At the end of each day I will admit I wondered why I came. I have Parkinson's and I tire easily but I trudged on. Since I had not been on this excursion for so long, I would not give in to the controlling Mr. Parkinson. I'll admit he almost won a few times.
The weather was beautiful,,,,warm for November. It's no fun to shop in the rain or extreme cold....we have done that at times.The coldest I've ever been was in Williamsburg waiting for the "Great Illumination. I had on all the clothes I brought with me! We finally were able to get close enough to one of the bonfires to warm up just a little.
Now if it weren't enough to be cold we got lost when we tried to find our car in a pitch dark parking lot. We were forced to park in the "overflow " which had no lights. We wandered around for what seemed like an hour but actually was only a few minutes. How grateful we were to be back in the shelter of the car. We didn't mind so much that it took a long time to wind our way through the traffic and back on the main road to our hotel.
The evenings in our warm, safe rooms were the most enjoyable of the trip. We donned our night clothes, some modeling purchases made earlier in the day. There were funny outfits decorated with frogs and Disney characters. Looks were not the main concern...comfort and warmth were the orders of the day. Some feet remained half frozen well into the night.
As women are prone to do, we talked and talked and laughed a lot. After all I had seventeen years to retrieve....some that would never be lived over.. .. too much sadness in some. We left those alone and emphasized the happy ones. I sat there listening and looking around the crowded hotel room. In years I had missed, children had grown up. One young lady was expectng her second child. How could that be? She was too young for the last trip I was on. Here my friend and I sit and we are great-grandmothers now. Tears fill my eyes as I realize life has given us more good times than bad, more joy than sorrow, and a friendship that will last until we are called to our heavenly home. Who knows...maybe it will continue there!
I think I'll go again next year...I don't want to miss the good times.
Your comments are welcomed.
