Christmas

My parents and I had a pretty low key Christmas. Festivities actually started for me on Tuesday, when we had a Christmas party at the after school program. The kids were all amped up on sugar, so I made sure they were kept busy physically to tire them out. I really love them a lot. I can see why having kids is so life altering on many levels.

On Wednesday, our plans to leave for the cabin were pushed back a little. It had rained the previous night and everything was a sheet of ice. It started to break up a little later, so our plans were only pushed back an hour or so. We arrived at the cabin around 2.30PM and were able to check in right away.

Most people probably think my family’s enjoyment of the outdoors is a little weird. We don’t go to the city or to the beach for vacation. Our idea of perfection is being in the middle of nowhere with a radio and reading materials. When I lived in Philly, I always cherished the week we’d spend at World’s End. This past October, I did nothing but sleep and fish. We have a new Christmas tradition over the past couple years of going to Rickett’s Glen and renting a modern cabin. The World’s End cabins have electricity, a refrigerator, a stove, and a wood stove. You have to go to a common bathroom and shower. The cabins at Rickett’s Glen are modern: electricity, electric heat, a fridge, a stove, and a microwave. We also have our own bathroom with a shower. It’s perfect for winter because no one wants to be running around outside when it’s as cold as it is.

We got up to the cabin, unpacked and took long naps. When I woke up, my parents told me that they forgot to lock the cabin door and someone snuck in with a stocking for me. It was a Flyers stocking, bright orange with that lovely flying P. Mom told me to see what was in it, but as soon as I picked it up, I knew from the rectangular bottle with a square top that it was a bottle of Disaranno. We pretty much had a full bar up here, even if you aren’t supposed to bring alcohol into the park. But there was more: the gift tag indicated that Mike Richards brought it for me. Loves it!

To surprise my mom, my dad bought $30 of lottery tickets (she loves those). So we sat around and scratched tickets for awhile. God, we’re boring. Then we decided to open presents, which was interesting since we put $30 limits on the gifts this year. I bought my mom some cheese making starter and a Tobias Funke shirt from Arrested Development. I bought my dad a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He’s not an alcoholic; he just wanted to try it because he saw a segment about it on CBS’ Sunday Morning. Dad bought my mom an iPod dock with radio and TV out capabilities. Mom bought my dad the ESPN baseball almanac, which he wanted to settle any and every dispute about stats that comes up in his office. He also got some chai and some candy.

I got the awesomest presents… EVER. My mom got me a weekly planner with important women on it, some chai, some espresso, some candy and some soap, and my dad bought me a short wave radio. I had talked about wanting one for my PC service, but I thought dad was getting me the Tinker Deluxe Swiss Army knife he asked me about.

I put in the batteries, put a random band on, and couldn’t control myself when I instantly heard German news crystal clear. I spent the better part of two hours exploring the dials and seeing how many stations I could locate. I found one from Tunis, another from Rotterdam, a couple German and French stations, a Russian version of Deutsche Welle, 610 WIP to hear the Flyers/Blackhawks game and Radio Havanna which had some kind of mailbag show on. Let’s also not forget the BBC which also made my face light up. It was awesome. I can’t wait to try this thing out when I’m over in Albania and can get more stations. Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed at the radio’s magical power to overcome the distances that separate.