On the Road Again

Midnight High Mass on Christmas Eve in the chapel at the 410th Bomb Group base in France.
Date: December 24th, 1944 Photo ID: 342-FH-3A-17906-73015AC 
(Source)

On the road today, heading down to Maryland to spend Christmas with The Nuke and her tribe. I rather wish the entire clan could gather on the 25th, but with everyone spread hither and yon, that takes some doing.

I don't really recall the year when last the bairns, their spouses, and their kids were all in the same house for Christmas. I do remember it was our house and there were only two grandchildren. That tells me that it was sometime after 2010.

We tend to head down to Maryland at this time of year more often than not, every year since 2018, that's for sure. (Not sure if we went down there in 2019, I think we did, and though we went down there at this time of year last year, it was after Christmas for The Nuke's birthday which falls on New Year's Eve.) If we're not there we head up to New Hampshire to my Mom's house.

I think The Missus Herself and I have stayed home, by ourselves, only once or twice since the kids all grew up and moved out. We always had one or more cats in residence as well. This year will be strange, our first without a feline presence in thirty years. I don't like it but I'm getting used to it.

I like a full house for Christmas, one of the best was when The Nuke's canines were in attendance, my granddogs Bear and Kodi¹, along with our feline staff Sasha and Anya.² I remember well when Anya ventured downstairs, for one reason or another, and took cover beneath the Christmas tree. She did not go unnoticed by Bear.

Now Bear is a big friendly shepherd-chow mix and she really wanted to make Anya's acquaintance. So she stuck her nose under the tree. Whereupon Anya greeted her with a carefully delivered blow to the nose, claws out just enough to get Bear's attention. Which she did.

Bear went yelping to the kitchen to report the affront to her canine dignity, Anya retreated upstairs to the feline Fortress of Solitude to report that invaders were present within the Homeland. 

We tried to keep them separate the remainder of the visit.

Don't expect a lot of posting over the holidays, I'm going to try and stay in the game, but I have grandkids and granddogs to entertain (and be entertained by) and I willingly devote lots of time to them.

I expect it will be fun, I expect it will be magical, and, in short, I expect it will be the kind of Christmas that I love. Time spent with family is never wasted.

John Blackshoe will be up on Christmas Eve, not sure if Juvat wants to post on Christmas Day which is, after all, a Monday, a Juvat Day, if you will. But he too has friends and family and he too will be celebrating with family, so I won't hold him to posting on that day. (I suppose he'll want the entire day off, but I expect him to be in all the earlier on Boxing Day. Just kidding, Juvat, call off the air strike. Please.)

Anyhoo, I'll make sure we have something up for Christmas (JB gave me a little something to post if needed, short, very Navy, but very nice. If you don't see it Christmas Day, I'll put it up on Boxing Day, or the Second Day of Christmas as they call it in Deutschland.)

Be seeing you, wish me a good trip. We're driving as I like the drive, also I'm getting older and don't know how much longer I'll be able to make that drive. Father Time keeps pointing out that I'm an old f**t now, feeling the years I am. Not really a lot of years (70), but a few bad roads driven in my time, not all of it has been "highway miles," if'n you know what I mean.

Tschuss³, and enjoy the holidays.

¹ Which is short for Kodiak Bear, not her full name, as I gather, but she chose Kodi based on that. The Nuke always added "bear" to the names of our cats, so when she grew up and got a dog, of course she named her Bear. Kodi followed a year or so later.

² Who The Nuke, of course, called "Sasha Bear" and "An-Bear."

³ Bye, auf Deutsch.