Christmas Escapes

oldman said:
Is Lamu a separate country, or what?
Click to expand...
No, Lamu is not a separate country. It is a town on the Indian Ocean, located about 212 miles north of Mombass, Kenya. Lamu is a part of Kenya but it is located near the Somalian border. I was there one Christmas; trying to escape Christmas. The old part of the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nice place to visit but very, very hot.
 

On the 18th, I’m going to Florida in the morning on a Southwest plane. Problem is that I am coming back in the evening. Really? Who does that? It was 17 degrees here this morning.
 

Liberty said:
Wow, I'm quoting myself here...never did that before...lol. The kitchen has been remodeled since then but here are a few pics to give you an idea - every flat surface had cookies on it:
View attachment 80126
View attachment 80127
View attachment 80129
Click to expand...
These pictures remind me of a Polish wedding that I went about 15 years ago. The one lady told me that her and 5 other ladies baked all day the day before the wedding. There were a lot of cookies, but also many, many other pastries. I must have gained 4 or 5 pounds on that day.
 
911 said:
These pictures remind me of a Polish wedding that I went about 15 years ago. The one lady told me that her and 5 other ladies baked all day the day before the wedding. There were a lot of cookies, but also many, many other pastries. I must have gained 4 or 5 pounds on that day.
Click to expand...
You should know the guys who tell my hub "if I was married to your wife, I'd gain a lot of weight"...lol. Mom and I used to cook for weeks before Christmas. Every night after work I'd bake a couple batches of some cookie or bar...then freeze them. One year we were building this main house and living in the apt over the garage and I started putting bars in every available drawer and cabinet as we didn't have a lot of storage space for all our furniture and stuff.

We would take all the cookies and bars out, place them on the floor and start packing the gift containers for employees, and other recipients. That year, a couple weeks after the holidays, I'd open up a chest, or desk drawer and find a pan of bars we forgot that got stuffed in there a couple days before packing!
 
Liberty
My kitchen looked like that until about 5 years ago; I decided at age 85 to finally stop and let others
in the family do it. Of course they haven't but that's not my problem anymore.
We do get together at my son's for for the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and that
I look forward to.
 
tortiecat said:
Liberty
My kitchen looked like that until about 5 years ago; I decided at age 85 to finally stop and let others
in the family do it. Of course they haven't but that's not my problem anymore.
We do get together at my son's for for the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and that
I look forward to.
Click to expand...
Yes, frankly would have stopped a lot sooner, but my mom (who was legally blind) lived with us for 26 years and just loved that part of the holidays. She was overjoyed to bake her favorite cookies, pack them and give them out. Always said that Christmas was for children and giving. We baked hundreds of dozens of cookies and she couldn't do it all herself so we made it our joint tradition together for over 20 years!
 
I guess maybe I would like to find a place like that too. Having seasonal depression, I am always looking for a place to hide over the holidays. My wife and kids mean the world to me, but when my best friends died, Mom & Dad, the holidays haven’t been the same.
 
oldman said:
I guess maybe I would like to find a place like that too. Having seasonal depression, I am always looking for a place to hide over the holidays. My wife and kids mean the world to me, but when my best friends died, Mom & Dad, the holidays haven’t been the same.
Click to expand...
After my mom died in 2006, we used to leave a couple days before Christmas every year, drive around the swamp to SW Florida to a beachfront condo we stayed in for 5 weeks. Oddly enough the weather was sometimes only marginally better than where we live and sometimes worse if you call hurricane force winds and storm surge filling the complex swimming pool with black junk and palm fronds all over the place. We were on the top floor and those howling winds were wild.

One time the cell phone shrieked at us to "take safe shelter immediately" tornado approaching. Ok, now we are in a cube on the top floor of a beach condo with water coming in the walls...like where do you take shelter - not in the elevator for sure, huh!

Who was it said "you can run, but you can't hide"...oh yeah, it was Joe Louis.
 
Packerjohn said:
I have tried to escape Christmas madness but it seems to follow me. We spent one winter in Mexico & I go so sick of all the stores playing that darn "Feliz Livieda" (pardon spelling). Another Christmas we spent in Lamu, Kenya which is about as Moslem as you might want it. Believe it or not the hotel put up a Christmas tree, played Christmas music & had a special Christmas meal. Please tell me where I could go on this planet & escape all the mad Christmas hype. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Las Vegas
 

Back
Top