Winnie and I just returned from Christmas at Mom’s house in Burlingham, New York. It was a nice Christmas, and a pleasant but quick trip.
We didn’t plan the trip until the Friday night before Christmas. I have the entire Christmas week off. Winnie is now working retail at a large department store, and NO ONE can expect to get time off between Thanksgiving and New Year’s if they want to continue working there. Winnie still likes her job there, so really didn’t want to quit…
But Winnie was able to switch days with a co-worker so she had the Tuesday after Christmas off, and didn’t need to go in until 3:30 that Wednesday. Just enough time. We left Sunday night when she got off, and we arrived at Mom’s house about 1:00AM.
We spent the two days there doing what we usually do at Mom’s – eat, talk, eat, watch TV, eat, and go to Middletown for shopping and sight-seeing. Christmas day we opened our gifts about noon, then had Christmas dinner. I walked a bit outside taking some photos and exploring the nearby woods.
Tuesday we went to the Gallaria Mall in Middletown for lunch and window shopping. Then back through Pine Bush and had dinner at the “Cup and Saucer” dinner there, named after the town’s claim to fame as the UFO capitol of the world. A nice diner, one that I hadn’t even seen before but learned it had been around for several years.
Wednesday morning we left at 7:00, and drove straight through to Virginia. We stopped briefly at a rest stop near Promised Land, Pennsylvania, to see the snow. Yes, we actually saw some of the elusive white stuff here, about one-half inch, and drove through snow flurries for about one hour. This was the only snow we saw the entire trip. We made it back to our apartment about 2:00, just in time for Winnie to get freshened up and off to work.
I can report that Mom’s dog “Sammy” is still hanging in. He’s 15 now, and getting a bit slow, but still a great little dog.
All-in-all, a nice trip. We now know that Mom is only a 6+ hour drive away, which is good to know as she prepares to sell her house and move out.
Related Posts
Watching The Snow : A winter’s day in Northern Virginia.
This and That, Belated Turkey Edition : Catching up on all the news, a little late.
My Encounter with Robert Garwood, Part I : Part one of my two-part story on living next door to Robert Garwood. He is a former marine who was court-martialed for aiding and abetting the enemy in Vietnam. I treated him as a neighbor, and within two years he wrecked my marriage, spread the most vicious lies about me, and generally turned my life upside down.
