We’re back around a week. A fun but exhausting trip. The trip up was good. Left at 4 am. No traffic, made it in 7 hours.
Seeing Brylee was the best. Unfortunately she had the flu. I didn’t care, nothing was going to keep me away from her. It was just the sniffles. We got to see her recital, adorable as usual, (my little star). We had so much fun together! I started speaking to her in a silly made up language, she didn’t ask, “grandma what are you doing?” she answered right back in her own silly language. We went on like that whenever it struck us throughout our visit. It’s such joy to see her so excited for Santa to come.
On Monday we drove to my cousin Carol’s house for “cousins night.” I decided to make a charcuterie board. I had anxiety about it. I went on ChatGPT, put in picture of board, measurements, amount of people and what I wanted on it. I got a picture back with details of each cheese and meat and how much of each, along with nuts, spreads, and fruit. It was a big hit. Anyway it was fun. I didn’t talk to my sister, which was fine. I enjoyed catching up with all my cousins.
Christmas Eve down to Long Island. It takes two hours from Poughkeepsie. We arrived around 1:30, helped his mom and went to the 4:00 mass. I didn’t want to go. I feel that they’re all a bunch of hypocrites. The perfect family, his brother, wife, and 3 perfect sons and his sister, husband, and their perfect sons, plus mother-in-law.
So the get-together started around 5:30. Appetizers, cleanup, pictures, (takes a good hour), his mom hands out blessed wafers and the boys read about the birth of Jesus and we all exchange bits of the wafers, kisses and Merry Christmas’s. This is a Polish tradition that we do every year. Now comes dinner, cleanup. Presents: starts with the five boys, (grown young men) opening their stockings from their grandmother. Then Secret Santa, one at a time. Moving on to game where unmarked presents are put down, everyone gets a word from “The Night before Christmas.” You pick a gift and anyone can take it, etc, this took around 2 hours. It is now 11 pm and dessert is being served. Time to go. We each filled a baggie with Christmas cookies and left. We didn’t get back to hotel till 1:30.
Whew, I’m exhausted. Next morning is Christmas Day! Worked our way over to Bryan and Laura’s. We arrived around 12:30. Present time for Brylee. So much fun. Happy to see that everyone dressed up. Brylee had a beautiful Christmas dress with black patent leather shoes. Great day. I did another charcuterie board. Prime rib and baked ziti. I did miss the usual lasagna.
Next day back driving to Maryknoll in Ossining, NY. This is where his aunt, Sister Marian lives. She is the retired nun, she also just turned 100. She is also a doctor who spent her entire life helping women in Africa, India and South America. She helped founded a hospital in Africa for women. Although her health isn’t very good, she is lucid and I love having conversations and value her opinion’s. I asked her how I could stop feeling the hate and rage I feel for the president. She advised me to try and redirect my feelings into something positive. She encouraged me to find a mantra. I was happy we got to see her.
On the 27th we headed back to VA. Left at noon. Waze took us a totally different way back. 84 to 81, (very long), to rte. 66, to 17 east, coming back to 95 in Fredericksburg, VA. I thought it took forever but Pete said it took 8 hours with 3 stops. Best thing was no traffic until northern Virginia. Anyway here we are.