I need a vacation. Seems like the holidays just go on forever, along with all the music and lights and cheery "merry Christmas!" greetings from everyone. I don't mean to sound like a Grinch, but honestly, after a while...one of the best things about Christmas, for me, is that I can torture my sister with the Burl Ives version of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas".
My first husband and I used to take such great vacations. When our son was young we went somewhere fun every summer - Colorado, Disney World, Washington DC, Colonial Williamsburg. I had as much fun planning them as I did taking them.
One summer I had planned a wonderful trip - flying to Boston, renting a car and touring all around the east coast, taking the train to Washington, DC, then flying back home. I had sent deposits to several hotels and was almost giddy with anticipation. At that time my first husband and I both worked for the same company - he in a management position, I in clerical. The union contract expired, so I sat at home like a good little union member, and he worked 100 hours per week. That's just the way it was, and neither of us questioned it. It went on that way for 3 weeks, and the time was approaching for me to cancel all the plans I had made, or forfeit all the deposits. So I cancelled. The next day the strike was settled. I was so thoroughly ticked I decided we would take all the money my first husband had made working, and we would go to Hawaii. So we did. We each picked an island and took the island hopper planes to Kauai (my selection), Maui (my son's pick) and Hawaii (first husband's choice). It was almost as good as the original trip would have been.
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