So I was just curious-
who all is going away this Christmas? A fun vacation? Visiting family who are far away?
Mine is only three days away- soon I get to leave the cold of Boston (although I don’t get to leave my schoolwork behind, we have finals after break) and go home to warm, sunny Los Angeles, California… whistles, and stacks of Puritan sermons which i have to write a paper about in tow…
Anyway just wondering if there are any other fellow chiffys out there who will be a-travelling soon..
Vacation? We don’t need no steenkin vacation. I have the 25th off. The end. I come directly from work to my in-laws’ house for dinner on the 24th. They’re going to hold off eating until I arrive. If I’m late, all bets are off. I probably won’t get any whistle practice in that day. What humbug. Same thing happens with New Years,
There’s my whine. Do I feel better? No, not really. (But, you go ahead and have a wonderful time. I’ll think about you while I’m at work. )
Tony
This is my “darling daufter”'s first Christmas after college and she and her sweetie are in San Jose. I’ll probably afflict her with my presence in the spring. They might have furniture by then.
My guitar-playing friend is probably spending Christmas with his mom. She’s 95-something, healthy and active, living in her own apartment in an assisted living community. They all seem to be members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) there, which makes it a bit more interesting to an outsider like me. They even have a Scottish dance group! (Granted, they don’t move very fast, but they do move.)
I’ve just gotten an invitation to Christmas dinner from my favorite neighbor. She has macular degeneration so I’ll drive us up to her son’s house at the top end of the county.
Other than that, it’s me and the cats. The rest of my family is in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, north Florida) and I’ll probably see them in April.
I’m going home for Christmas (Seattle) on the 19th, and then I am going home for after Christmas (27th ish) to SLC/Wyoming to session with most of the folks from the Rocky Mountain Boys. Then I go back home to Seattle, and then back home to New York after the new year.
I find it’s much easier to classify EVERYTHING as home.
Vacation??? Mine is currently a 10’ deep trench in my backyard where they are replacing my sewer line from the house to the city sewer & just discovered my neighbor’s sewer line runs into my backyard and uses my sewer pipe (this is currently illegal, but was legal back when the house was built in 1940). My neighbor is adamantly saying the contractor has to pay to repair their line, the contractor is saying the neighbor is responsible since it’s his sewer line which is currently in violation of current code, and I’m stuck in a deadlock with my backyard destroyed to the tune of $3,000 to $6,000 dollars (depending on whether or not they have to dig up my basement, which includes removing the downstairs bathroom, to reconect to my main drain pipe which was not in good shape).
My life really sucks right now…
Plus, there is no way I’ll get another whistle or flute in the long term future! Sorry for this whiny message.
My husband and I and our three kids are driving to Arizona (12 hour drive) for two weddings and Christmas. I hope the long drive with the kids will be survivable! My husband borrowed a laptop from someone so we can let them watch DVDs on it and play computer games.
Anyway, it’ll be nice to get away and have a break, however stressful the drive. And rest assured, I will be taking along (in a place of honor ) my two lovely big packages from a certain Whistle Shop…
I will be in the barn probably getting poop on my shoes and who knows where else as I milk 110 cows twice that day in the stinking freezing cold.
But…
I hope to spend some of the day choosing between playing either my new Seagull guitar I am getting for christmas or my new Serpent Whistle I won today from Bill’s contest.
I wish you all safe trip and a Merry Christmas!
Kathy
Christmas is the one holiday for which I refuse to travel. I love spending it at home, with my hubby and kid. Relatives are welcome to come visit us, but we stay put. Probably the only thing that could change that would be a serious family emergency.
The Christmas/New Year period comes just before the most popular time in Australia to take summer holidays—January. Many businesses close down between Christmas and New Year. Things happen here very slowly if at all at this time of the year—very different from England, where people celebrated Christmas and New Year and otherwise just got on with business. Most people here seem to spend Christmas at home and then take a vacation. I go to Melbourne to spend Christmas with family and friends and combine that with a holiday in which I usually manage to do some recording. Some of you will be relieved to hear that there will be a few weeks of deathly silence from Wollongong coming up in a few days time. I’ll miss you.
Charlene and I are off to Michigan to visit her family, with a detour to Toronto on the way out ( it’s her favorite city, and I’ve never been there.) Any good brewpub suggestions there?
We also plan a visit to Glenn Schultz while we’re out in Michigan-- talk a little shop, listen to a few tunes, have some dinner. Always an enjoyable and informative experience.
Safe travelling to all!
My son and family are coming from sunny California to dreary Ontario for Christmas. I never budge at Christmas. But if I did here’s what I’d want to do.
Day after tomorrow, I’ll be leaving this cold, God-forsaken wasteland for the tropical paradise of Cancun, Mexico. Can’t help but wish I was going to Ireland, though!
[ This Message was edited by: Bartleby on 2002-12-17 09:37 ]
On 2002-12-17 09:35, Bartleby wrote:
Day after tomorrow, I’ll be leaving this cold, God-forsaken wasteland for the tropical paradise of Cancun, Mexico. Can’t help but wish I was going to Ireland, though!
You’re calling northeast Alabama a cold, God-forsaken wasteland?
I grew up there (Fort Payne, Huntsville, Collinsville, Fort Payne)…wasteland? Well, yeah.
God-forsaken? Pick a god–the Baptists seem pretty entrenched.
Cold? It depends, I guess. My parents never lived in a house with central heat, so I was never warm in the winter until moving to Pennsylvania.
But you DO get your daffodils a month earlier than I do.
I echo the sentiment about Ireland, though. Safe travel!
Well, we’ve finally got our plans worked out. We’re just going up to my wife’s grandparents’ house about an hour from here. It’s a lovely place, out in the country. Central/northern Bucks County, about 20 minutes north of Doylestown, for those familiar with eastern Pennsylvania.
We’ll only be there for a couple of days, but after that I have off until Jan. 2, so I’m really looking forward to a little time away from work (and lots of time to play my whistles and flute).
I hope you all have a great holiday if you’re celebrating it!
On 2002-12-17 07:29, SteveK wrote:
My son and family are coming from sunny California to dreary Ontario for Christmas. I never budge at Christmas. But if I did here’s what I’d want to do.
Hooray Jake, Hooray John,
Breakin up Christmas all night long.
Steve
Do you have the tune to “Breaking Up Christmas”? I’m thinking of having a Breaking up Christmas party after the holiday – toss the tree on the bonfire, play some tunes, etc. I’d love to learn the tune, and all I’ve turned up on the web is banjo tab, which I don’t know how to read.
I’ll see what I can do Sarah. My scanner won’t work with this computer but maybe I can write it out on Encore and send it to you. It’s really quite a simple tune as many of those Round Peak tunes are. Could you send me the address where you found the banjo tab. I can translate it into notes.
