Saturday, December 27, 2008

Our First Christmas "on the road" by Tricia Baehr

















This is our first Christmas as a “family on the road” and we put quite a bit of thought into what we would do. We didn’t want to celebrate in the RV so we had several ideas. One of them was to drive half way to Illinois and stop in downtown Louisville, KY or Indianapolis, IN. I researched different hotels, Bed & Breakfasts, Inns, etc. I actually even e-mailed a group of Inns in Indianapolis to see what kind of accommodations they would have for the 23rd of December through the 25th. They didn’t reply, so I took that as a sign.
Also, because of our busyness I contacted an on-line concierge service to plan something in one of those cities for us. Apparently, that was a sign too because they didn’t reply either. Amazing to me in the economic climate that exist right now that we were ready and willing to give our hard earned money to someone in business and they didn’t respond.
So that bring us to our first Christmas “on the road”. We are at a cabin in the mountains http://www.smokycabins.com/rayoavista.htm. It is Christmas eve morning as I write, there is a lovely wood fire burning in the fireplace. When we made the booking the property manager went on and on about how nice the cabin is decorated for Christmas. The large tree fully decorated. I told John that not having to put up a tree or take one down was worth at least a Ben Franklin right there. We oohed and ahhed at the pictures on the internet, there was even a picture of the tree!
We arrived the night of the 23rd of December, it was dark and we had a little trouble finding it at first. But soon we turned off the GPS and read the directions from the cabin rental company. We pulled up and found the key in the lock box, opened the door turned on the lights and much to our dismay there was no tree! The kids ran up the stairs to see if perhaps it was upstairs…no tree. There were some lovely decorations on the mantel, the table was set with pretty red dishes and gold chargers but no tree. We are really not the type to complain too much but with three little kids experiencing their first Christmas without a “stick” house it was kind of a deal breaker. I called the property manager and asked about the tree. She called me back and said she really didn’t have a good answer for me but the next day she would bring us a small tree. She also said we could move to another cabin that she knew for sure was fully decorated. We had already unloaded our groceries, gifts and stuff into the cabin. So I told her we would discuss it as a family and decide what we would do and I would call her back. Everyone was unanimous in deciding to stay, so when I called her back I inquired about the beautiful tree in the pictures. Was it here somewhere locked away, could we put it up ourselves? She let me in on where it was and how to get to it. What at first seemed like a disappointment turned into a beautiful, fun and memorable experience. It’s a beauty, a 7 footer with gold decorations, white lights, signs that say, “Peace” and white doves. We all enjoyed trimming the tree last night together. And even better, we won’t have to take it down!
It reminds me of so many things in life. It is how you look at them. We could have been angry, demanded our money back, schlepped all of our stuff over to the other “decorated” cabin probably all being short with one another over the extra work. But instead, we chose to make it work. We made the choice and then the goodness and energy flowed bringing us a beautiful memory that we enjoyed making “in the moment” and will have forever more. I pray that that kind of acceptance and ingenuity will continue with our life “on the road”.
We have the rest of today, Christmas eve and all day tomorrow here together. The day after Christmas we will be back “on the road” visiting family up North and hopefully the kids will get to see and play in some snow. I will attempt to blog some more about this holiday. If not you will all know that we were all busy being in the moment and enjoying this gift I like to call life.