After months of planning, one of my Austinite friends and I met up at a halfway point in Elizabethtown, NC. Although he and his partner had recently purchased a plot of land in VA, they transformed a bus into a mobile tiny home and drove to a quiet beach in NC for the winter.

My friend chose the restaurant since he follows a vegan diet. My sister, nephew and I are omnivores, so we definitely found something delicious. Starting with the wine.

My sister and I both got a wine flight, consisting of five choices. As much as possible, I avoided sweet wine. My sister was the opposite. I often tease both of my sisters and mother of liking “alcoholic Kool-aid.” Only my nieces, other nephew and I have a good wine palate.

My first three wine choices were no brainers: Merlot, Cab, and Red Blend. I included the Pinot Gris only because the description included the word “spice,” even though I’m not a white-wine drinker. My last choice was the worse, Noble Muscadine. I’ve created a new foodie rule: never order/buy any wine that includes the word “war” in its description.

During lunch, my friend and I reminisced about the non-profit where we met. I was so surprised that he still volunteers with them once a week remotely. In general, we’d both moved on and continued to pursue happiness. I shared with him my creative projects: filmmaking, blogging, digital illustration, and podcasting.

He and his partner are doing their best to reduce their carbon and plastic impact, among other things, which is why they are going to develop their land in an eco-friendly bed and breakfast with a vegan menu.

At the mention of veganism, my sister and I shared how Mom had made vegan potato salad for our niece during Christmas. My sister had also made a Christmas batch of vegan egg rolls, which she offered to make for my friend’s bed and breakfast once it was up and running. I’m holding both parties to that future plan.

After lunch, we toured the hallway, which was covered with celebrity-autographed photos. My friend and I posed with Snoop Dogg. Then, we said goodbye to my friend and took a stroll around the area where some animals were.

We didn’t get close enough to get spat on, but I may have to implement the strategy female llamas use when they aren’t interested in a male. New year, new strategy!

The biggest gift I gave myself was end-of-the-year PTO. Last year was the first time since resigning as a classroom teacher that I had a paid Christmas/Kwanzaa/New Year’s vacation. I wanted to recreate that luxury of vacation time this year.

Last year, Christmas was on a Monday, so there was no issue about working either Christmas nor New Year’s Eve. This year, Christmas lands on a Wednesday. I got December 16th-January 1st off, but I still have to work the Eve of both Christmas and New Year’s. Unless I win the PTO lottery for either one or both of the eves while on vacation.

A week before my vacation started, the Strange family had its virtual bimonthly Sunday meeting, which ended with a Christmas celebration. After a round of reminiscing about our most memorable Christmas, we got to my favorite part: the Kahoots game. The game theme wasn’t “Christmas,” but rather “Strange Family History.”

Regardless of theme, I became very competitive once we got going. Took me a while to get on top, but once I was there, no one knocked me off. So, true to my game-nickname, I slayed. One of my sisters, with the stripper game-nickname, came in second. Third place went to one of my first cousins.

The following weekend, my dance studio hosted its annual Christmas student/teacher showcase. As usual, I brought a bottle to share and was a most enthusiastic audience member. For past showcases, I’d brought wine, but was the only one who drank it. This time, I brought a bottle of eggnog and STILL, hardly anyone touched it. They are truly a cocktail crowd, which is hard to compete with since there were four different Christmas-themed cocktails on tap.

I broke out with my red corduroy pants and Christmas sweater with a Santa hat fascinator. Yet, the performers, for the most part, went the extra mile with their costumes: Krampus, the Grinch, Ms Claus(es), fur-lined lingerie.

Once again, my dance instructors mildly bugged me about performing. After all, I’d been taking classes for over two years and attended classes about three times a week; so it made sense that they’d want a dedicated student to participate in the showcase.

I shared with my stretch and flexibility teacher, shown above in a very flexible pose, that once I finally got a certain back-flexibility challenging pose, that I’d participate in a showcase. The catch: she’d have to help me figure out how to achieve getting to that point. I’d actually write a piece to go along with the performance as well. If i’m going to participate in a showcase, might as well show out!

The vacation truly began on Monday when I slept in, then baked Tomato Basil Herring mini quiches. After breakfast, I had an eye appointment, where, for the first time in years, I was fitted for contacts along with my newest pair of (birth control) glasses.

Once I finished with my appointment, I dropped by the nail salon. As I suspected, they were not crowded at all. Some of the women looked absolutely bored. Perfect. I kept dozing off even though I was listening to an audiobook. The tricky part came when I kept nodding off during the manicure. At least I didn’t fall out of the seat or bang my head on the plexiglass, a remnant of a COVID restriction.

The next morning, I took my car in to get the tires filled with nitrogen gas, so the tire pressure wouldn’t fluctuate significantly along with the temperature. I used that time to do my daily pharmacy tech lesson. I was almost finished once the mechanics were. I stayed about ten minutes longer to finish the lesson and then I hit the road.

I stopped for lunch since I usually eat between 12 and 1:30. I kept looking for a highway sign for Chipotle, but never saw one. I ended up exiting when I saw a sign for Panera, which I didn’t find because I found a Chipotle instead. Go figure.

About an hour after that pit stop, the combination of food coma, highway hypnosis and the lulling sounds of my audiobook made it almost impossible for me to stay awake. I pulled over for a very quick power nap. After all of five minutes of just resting my eyes at a gas station, I felt much more alert. For the last leg of the drive, I switched to music instead of listening to the audiobook, despite how interesting the book was.

As soon as I entered my sister’s house, I grabbed a fresh-out-of-the-oven vegan pistachio cookie…only four ingredients! My niece has been a vegan for years and I may have to meet her halfway since I’ve recently given up HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). Not all sugar. Just the form that is the most poisonous. Anything to avoid diabetes.

Once my sister came home, we started watching the latest action-adventure Christmas movie while eating pizza: vegan, veggie and omnivore. During that time, I learned they had an interesting way of movie-watching. Whenever a scene evoked conversation, they’d pause the movie, discuss, then resume the movie.

On my first full day of out-of-town vacation, everyone was out of the house to report for work by 7:45 except for me. I stayed in my PJs all day long, studying, reading and working on three creative projects. The only thing that I didn’t have was beach waves to periodically gaze at. Occasionally glancing at a muted TV was a poor substitute.

Around 7 PM, my sister and I left for a line dancing class. I don’t care for that genre of dance class, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken one. Besides, I knew this would be the only exercise I got while visiting.

My sister, like me, preferred to be in the front row and we misstepped our way throughout the hourlong class. Just like before, once the complicated steps seeped into muscle memory, I was no longer mentally engaged in the dance even though the song wasn’t over.

I’ve heard that the best thing about line dancing is infusing the movements with your own flavor, but for me, “flavor” comes with freestyling to music. Not doing the same series of steps throughout the entire song.

Nonetheless, I got a good workout, breaking out in a sweat from the warmup and maintaining that heat until we fled at the official end of class. Some stayed afterwards to practice another dance, but I told Renee I was ready to go.

The only thing that slowed down our departure was the Christmas display. Since I’d bothered to change out of my PJs, I had Renee to pose with me before we left.

The next day, my niece and nephew stayed home because they only worked for their parents part-time: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They went about their chores as I studied and juggled creative projects. I’d worn my thick, comfy Santa and Rudolf pants along with a comfy red pullover. They doubled as both my PJs and leisurewear. Good thing too because the only time I stepped foot outside to start up my car, which was 15 years old and wanted to make sure the battery didn’t die in the cold weather.

At night, one of my first cousins came over for the briefest “popcorn call.” She stayed long enough to hug everyone in the house and hand me two envelopes, one for each of my parents. When I asked my cousin where my envelope was, she said my gift was the love of seeing her in person.

For only the second time during my visit, I changed out of my PJs to run a few errands with my sister, then to visit with one of our cousins. We didn’t have a chance to warm up the space with our presence before she’d poured me a glass of Chardonnay. Although I warned my sister that she wouldn’t like it since Chardonnay wasn’t sweet. Of course she had to sip from my glass.

On the way over to her house, I got the bright idea to interview her for “Strange Family Folklore,” a podcast I started in 2020, interview descendants of my great-grandfather, Jesse Strange. Although my cousin had never listened to a single episode, she readily agreed to be interviewed. She made a few digs at Mom’s and her aunt’s age, along with a few barbs directly toward the president of the Strange Family Association.

Next stop: my sister’s longtime friend. Since my sister has low-visual acuity, I drove at night during that crazy DC-Maryland traffic. Even going ten miles over speed limit made me the slowest driver. Yes, I stayed in the right lane unless absolutely necessary.

After talking for a bit, we placed two orders of fried catfish at two different places to see which one had the best. The one that tasted the best, had the smaller pieces of catfish with delicious hushpuppies. The other had tasty, large catfish with delicious french fries. All in all, it was an enjoyable meal, conversation, followed by a sippable tequila that had a hint of cinnamon taste.

For some inexplicable reason, we felt compelled to watch a Christmas movie. I appreciated the effort to watch a movie with all-Black cast, but the movie we watched wasn’t one of the classic gold-standard Black Christmas movies. As a matter of fact, the most hilarious thing about the movie was that my sister and her friend couldn’t distinguish the actors. I laughed and accused them of not being able to tell Black people apart.

True to form, my sister fell asleep periodically throughout the movie. Yet, we HAD to stay until the movie ended. The best thing about watching a sorry movie is that none of us cared that we missed any of the dialogue while we were dissing it.

So on the last night of my visit, the coldest night, my sister, niece and I went out on the town, namely the MGM and then the National Harbor. I didn’t find the Christmas decorations all that spectacular at the MGM, but made the best of it.

My sister, who used to be a modeling enthusiast (at 5’4″, she could not, back in the day, be too serious about it), alway knows how to strike a pose no matter how average the display.

Once we got to the harbor, the hawk was definitely out. Usually, wearing my Santa hat with my dreads over my ears was enough to keep everything warm, but that wind from the river whipped up under everything. By the time we left the restaurant, I doubled up on my headgear and kept the hawk away. At least from my ears.

The combination of fresh air and a delicious meal of lobster bisque, steak salad and a cocktail, helped me get the best night’s sleep. Going to bed after 1 AM couldn’t have hurt either.

After breakfast, I hit the road. Back to my reality. My vacation away from home proved to be very relaxing and productive. I slept in every day, finished a video project, continued studying for my pharmacy tech license. All the while spending time with my sister and (extended) family. I enjoyed every minute of it.

*When I logged on to work on NYE morning, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my schedule read “PTO.” I took a screenshot of my schedule to email to my supervisor and team lead as to why I logged on for a hot second. Then, I went about enjoying another day off in my pajamas.

Over the years, I’ve attended many Friendsgivings since I’d lived apart from my family for many years where I didn’t travel back home for Thanksgiving. Sometimes, those events were also called “Orphans’ Thanksgiving,” in which case, the adults who attended weren’t traveling to be with their relatives for the holiday.

In all those years, I’d never attended a religious-sponsored celebration. Mom claimed that she’d never even heard of it before.

Since this event was sponsored by a church, it began with an all-male choir singing a selection, a scripture reading, a welcome message and prayer, followed by a few games.

Everyone was given a ticket. For each game, several participants’ tickets were called to play a game. I knew my ticket wouldn’t be called. I’ve scientifically proven that my ticket would hardly ever be pulled in such event. That conclusion was established years ago when I attended a Bat Ecology Workshop. There were 14 prizes and 15 participants. Guess who didn’t get a prize?

Mom’s ticket was called for the first game. She and five others had to wear a blindfold, put a plate on their head, and trace their non dominant hand to make a turkey. Just so happened that Mom’s dominant arm had been feeling weak, so she asked to be replaced. Of course, she attempted to volunteer me. First Lady, who hosted the event, didn’t pick up on Mom’s effort and simply pulled another ticket.

They played a few more games before dinner. Since Mom’s the church mother, i.e. the oldest female member, our table was called first. I INHALED my plate. I’d taken a Barre class in the morning and the beast was starving. That’s the best condition to be in for catered food.

The next Thanksgiving dinner will be held at one of my sister’s in-laws’ house. Unlike last year, both Mom and Dad will be able to attend since we have more infrastructure in place such as an electric wheelchair and a wheelchair accessible van. Those are going to be my reasons for being thankful for the celebration this year. Neither one was able to attend last year, so the holiday was somewhat muted.

When I was a child, the best part of Thanksgiving was all the special food we ate during the holiday. Now, what I’m really looking forward to is spending time with extended family–most of them.