Friend-Making Mondays -- Holidays and Vacation

So I don't really know what happened to me last week.  I meant to post more, but our internet at home wasn't working one day, and I had to be at work very early one day for a day-long continuing legal education seminar once, so somehow the week just got away from me.  Anyway, nothing particularly exciting to report! 

I want to get caught up on Friend-Making Mondays, so I'm doing a double today since I never got around to doing it last week. 

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: http://www.alltheweigh.com/ so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

FMM: What’s your favorite holiday? And why?

Well, as generic and common as it is as an answer, I have to say Christmas.  I like Mardi Gras, I like the Fourth of July, I like Thanksgiving, but I looooove Christmas.
 
We go home to spend it with my family every year (I have younger brothers who still come home too, while hubby's brothers are all older and spend the day with their own kids, so that's my argument as to why we see my family instead of his).  And besides that, staying here (with no family) isn't an option either because I can't imagine Christmas in Texas -- it wouldn't be cold enough or white enough!  Growing up in the great white north, to me Christmas is white and cold (well, so is Halloween sometimes!  but I'm flexible on that). 
 
Of course there is so much great stuff leading up to Christmas.  The holidays for me kind of begin the day after Thanksgiving when we put up our tree.  Before Thanksgiving I try to start my holiday shopping and sometimes I even start on cards because I hate to be rushed, but really, I'm only ahead of the game about every third year.  But we put the (fake) tree up so early (day after Thanksgiving) b/c some years I've flown home as early as the 18th of December, leaving not much time to enjoy the tree if I wait to put it up. 
 
So the day after Thanksgiving, we put up and decorate the tree while listening to holiday music.  Back in my single days, sometimes I'd sleep on the floor or couch looking at the tree for multiple nights during the holiday season.  It's so pretty! 
 
The rest of the season includes lots of parties and special dinners with friends, but most of this occurs after our big local marathon here, which is now the first weekend in December -- so many of my friends are runners and many of them don't drink (or eat crazy fattening foods) in the week or two before the race, so it's nice to have that behind us. 

I always do a special day of baking, now with my next-door neighbor's help.  We make a bunch of kinds of cookies. 

I don't know how I pass the rest of the season, but it's always busy.  Lots of wrapping, shopping and socializing, but my favorite part definitely starts the day I (or we) fly home.  Usually I go a few days in advance of hubby, then he flies to Chicago to hang out with my brothers who are there, then they give him a ride home when they come up.  It gives me extra quality solo time with my folks. 
 
When I get home, to start usually, there's lots of time with my nieces and nephew.  The last couple years even attending their school Christmas program.  Sometimes last minute shopping for things I didn't ship or bring with me.  Some wrapping.  But mostly soaking up the kids.  I'm not near them so they always seem to have grown so much from my last visit.  They're tons of fun (well, in limited quantities, I'm not a big kid person and when they get cranky, I just want out...). 
 
After a couple days of nieces/nephew time and last minute shopping and wrapping, It's about 5 hours' drive to my folks' house from Milwaukee, and when I get there it really starts to feel like time.  Something about Christmas with your mama!  She's cooking and baking up a storm for weeks.  There's lots of time just hanging out, playing games, going for long walks in the snow, last minute baking, reading cards from family friends, etc. 
 
Christmas Eve is usually the day everyone is finally home, my brothers, their girlfriends (well, this year I guess most of them will be wives!!!!).  We have an appetizer-type dinner, sometime with fondue or something like that.  And then we all get dressed up and take pictures, and head to church.  It's about 45 minutes away (often more because the temps are usually well below zero, so roads can be bad), so we sing carols in the car (with the radio), and if we get there early, we stop at a bar for hot toddies (and sometimes if one of my brothers had to work, he'll just meet us there rather than driving all the way home and then doubling back).  Then we stay at church and the last few years have been kind of fun since the priest at my folks' church is the priest who performed our wedding ceremony in Italy!  He also just married my baby brother off in July.  Kind of special.  Then we drive all the way back home, and usually sit up late drinking, talking and eating Christmas cookies -- my mom is really strict and no one is allowed to consume a single cookie until after Christmas Eve dinner.  Sometimes my mom will read A Christmas Story to us.  It's so much fun. 
 
Christmas morning we wake up and open presents together.  We take turns, one person opening one gift at a time, so it takes a long time.  Then my mom makes a very special brunch for us.  She makes a German Christmas bread, called stollen, and we have eggnog.  The main dish varies -- creamed chipped beef on toast (she'll hold the beef on mine) and some other things I can't really remember, but all delicious. 
 
Early afternoon the car gets loaded up for a drive with hubby and sometimes an occasional guest (last year it was my brother's girlfriend who had to work Dec. 26) to Milwaukee for Christmas Part Deux.  This one is with more family, and one of my brothers who doesn't come home is there with all of his kids.  Santa Claus makes an appearance, which is fun, and he has a gift for everyone -- so we all have to sit on his lap.  Hubby, grandpa, dad, nieces, etc.  Everyone.  Always fun.  This Christmas is a little more chaotic -- everyone opens presents at the same time and especially with the kids, it would take forever if we went one at a time.  Sometimes the kids have meltdowns, but they usually recover pretty quickly and it's always a lovely night. 
 
While I love being home for Christmas, the cold weather and the many dogs in the family (due to my allergies) always make us happy to get back to Texas!  Hubby and I do our own Christmas after the fact usually -- sometimes we bring something small with us to exchange on Christmas day, but usually we have so much stuff to take with us and to bring back that it's usually easiest to have a Christmas Part Trois together.

Okay, now on to this week's topic:

FMM: Dream Vacation



If you were given two tickets that you (and someone you chose) could use to fly anywhere in the world, where would you go? And why?

This one is really tough because the driving force behind many of our life decisions (choosing not to have kids or pets, job choices, retirement plans, spending decisions, lifestyle choices in general) is our love of travel.  So basically, I've already taken my dream vacation many times over. 

Initially, the dream vacation was Europe, then more specifically Italy.  I went for the first time in high school and I knew I'd have to return, I loved it so much. 

Then my horizons broadened a bit, and maybe I would have said the dream trip was somewhere in Africa for a safari, or somewhere like Bali.  After I got out of grad school, I took those trips -- a safari one year, city hopping in Asia the next (including Bali!). 

Then I came up with my final list as an adult:  top priorities are Israel, Russia, mainland China, Egypt and India.  We've recently done Russia, we have plans for China next year, and Egypt and India will follow, and we're deferring Israel for a while. 

So basically I've taken my dream trip many times over.  We go to Italy almost annually now, and about every other year, we take an exotic trip somewhere else.  I know I'm lucky but realistically, being able to do this is a priority for us, and like I said, we make a lot of our lifestyle choices to make these trips possible.  I obviously know there are many people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, but for many people with steady jobs, taking dream trips is possible, it's just a question of priorities, and for many people, it's just not a top priority, which I understand, but just isn't me! 

To answer the question, I would think practically -- if someone gave me 2 tickets, I'd probably pick the most expensive destination on our travel list because money and vacation days are the biggest constraints on our travel life.  Would that be Fiji or Tahiti or South Africa?  All places we'd like to go, not sure which is pricier.  Without looking it up, I think they're each around $2k, so calling it even, I'm going to choose.

Fiji.  If I was given 2 tickets to anywhere, I would take my husband to Fiji with me.  I could learn a little about the war, and we could stay on one of those private over-water cabins.  I would choose Fiji because I'm not sure we'll ever go there if we didn't get free tickets.  It's hard to justify spending so much money on a trip like that when we could do two or three trips to Italy instead for the same price, but I would love to see Fiji.  But if there was an error in booking and we were sent to Tahiti or Cape Town instead, that would work as well.  There's pretty much nowhere in the world I don't want to visit! 

I love travelling and expanding my horizons, so two tickets to anywhere would be good (though my least fave places so far have been Chinandega (Nicaragua), Bangkok, and Berlin, so I'm not eager to return to any of those).  Free tickets are free tickets!  What a fun thing to think about!