Part 2 Getting High on the Holidays Or Mary Ellen and Julie’s great Ballooning Adventure.
In keeping with my yuletide holiday sabbatical from the millennium series, I decided to write about our Palm Springs Holiday Season. (Or what to do without snow and frost and freezing cold for the holidays) Well sort of…
Peter and I and our family have only once in our lives, spent the holiday season away from our hometown of Vancouver. It was spent in London, England. Here we did the traditional Christmas things, we visited with friends, Christmas shopped at Harrods and went to midnight services at Westminster Abbey. Otherwise, it was a Green Christmas just like home.
Now Palm Springs is another kettle of fish. For example, before breakfast I took a refreshing swim in the pool and a little later Tim caught a few rays. Then it was “prepare turkey time for mother and I,” while waiting for number one son, Chris and his wife, Jodie to get out of bed. Isn’t it ironic, that when the children were little they dragged us out of bed at the crack of dawn, to see what Santa had brought. Now it’s our turn!!
Our family is very traditional. This includes the traditional real tree, the secrecy re: gifts and the total Christmas dinner menu, including Brussels sprouts. In Palm we stuck to all these traditions except for one, the tree. It was real, but this year we decided to decorate with fruit and turning disco balls. Heck! It’s a new millennium, a differnt climate and it is California! I might add the fruit was not real.
Thanks to our friend, Rosvita Byford, who was reminising about Christmas Eve celebrations in Germany, we started a new Palm Springs tradition. We couldn’t find German sausages,the mainstay of the Christmas eve meal, but we did serve our family favorite meal, pork spareribs. This also must be served with flat egg noodles and peas. (Birthday tradition) We did throw in a Polish sausage. Along with Rosvita and Bob, her husband, we were pleased to help celebrate the season with Chuck Walker and his family. They are all from the Vancouver area.
Our family had a great time and for the first time in ages Peter was truly surprised when we led him out to our tiny golf cart garage. This is an integral part of the Palm Springs architecture, but ours had always been empty. I had wrapped up the door opener with the keys to the gift so Peter would not stumble upon it before Christmas. When he opened the door, there it was, the shiny, red, sports golf cart, red bows and all.
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