The Holidays

Well, here I am on the final day of my Christmas/New Year vacation 2010 - if you blinked you could’ve missed it! Ten days may seem like a long period to space out, become refreshed, and ready to face the year ahead, but then again no. Holidays can so easily become filled with plans and activities, fun as they may be. This applies even more when you only see your family a couple of times a year.

Our lives as a whole, in fact, can so easily fall prey to this same ‘to-do list’ mentality, especially if you are the kind of compulsive, complete-ist that I am: there are ‘must-see’ movies and TV shows to be kept up with, bills to pay, chores and DIY projects to finish. All these competing pressures mean that I’ve often struggled to find the time and focus to write in the past year.

With this in mind, I decided when I woke up this morning to take a flight of fancy – if you will – out to Gravely Point on the Potomac. It’s quite an exceptional spot, actually. For a start, the park is right at the end of the runway for Reagan National Airport, and planes are taking off over my head every couple of minutes; I still find it magical to watch. For that I have Dad to thank.

Between these mighty man-made roars, I’m free to lounge back in the passenger seat and listen and watch as almost precisely nothing happens – the wide, blue Potomac river runs on by, and a handful of respectably-sized seagulls float on the currents of air or simply potter about. To that, add a sunny background of the capital’s major monuments in the distance – bliss.

So, now that I am here, and after that lengthy and self-indulgent preamble (sorry!), I should tell you about us, right?! Well, November and December brought a positive close to what was an extremely taxing year for us, as you all know.

I won’t repeat what Karen said a couple of days ago about our good fortunes surrounding the French Embassy wine tasting and the green chile, but these were certainly heartening examples of the difference that the kindness of a stranger can make in a person’s life.

Between our birthdays, we enjoyed a top notch Thanksgiving meal courtesy of John’s friend, Steve – the guy can cook! Then on the Friday were excited to decorate our first American home for Christmas, including buying our first real Christmas tree!

My birthday was spent mostly chomping on some of the many freebies I had received from various restaurant and fast food loyalty schemes, as well as with a cold-but-beautiful walk in Old Town. You would really never know how much it’s possible to save until circumstances force you to try!

In another stroke of luck, in December we received some tickets to the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, next to the White House. These are very hard to get, and the kind people who gave us them unfortunately couldn’t go due to illness. We had a great time listening to the musical acts, and a speech by President Obama.

Finally, the icing on the cake of the whole year was the Christmas visit of the family and my Mother-In-Law, Maria. It was great to see them again. May seems like practically another lifetime… In fact, with the recent major snows in the UK, it was touch and go if we would get to spend Christmas together at all!

We enjoyed the usual family chillout activities – walking around the area, some laugh-out-loud games, visiting the National Christmas Tree, our very successful home meals, and a few in restaurants. That is, of course, when we were not defending the baubles on the Christmas tree from two very excitable cats!

Having waved goodbye to Mum, Dad & Peter on the 30th, we celebrated our New Year’s Eve in the Chesapeake Grill, on the 19th floor of the Hyatt in Crystal City, with some succulent crab cakes and melt-in-the-mouth beef tenderloin :-)

With that, I put a lid on 2010. We hope that all our readers had a very Merry Christmas, and wish you all a Happy New Year!

Mark & Karen xx