Snippets from the Last Holiday Week Away

We spent the week between Christmas and New Years Day with my parents in Williamsburg.  My spouse and I arrived on Saturday, and other family members arrived on Sunday.  We were at my parents' place until Tuesday, when we packed up and went over to Ford's Colony, the Marriott resort in Williamsburg.  My mom had Marriott points that would expire at the end of the year, and we agreed that it could be a fun change of pace.

It was!  It felt like being away, and yet my parents didn't have the travel time that they usually do when we go anywhere at the holidays.  We did a few resort kind of things, like playing Bingo.  But it was really too cold to do much, like get out and walk the trails or go swimming.  I've already written about some of the things we did instead, like watching Chariots of Fire and going to see a Vegas-style magic show.

Let me capture a few other elements of the Williamsburg part of our winter break before they slip away.

--Before we left, on Christmas night, we watched Too Hot to Handel:  A Gospel Messiah.  It was amazing, both on its own and as a way to finish Christmas day and transition to surgery day.

--I've written several posts about my December 26 surgery.  Here's the short version:  I had a shallow, wide melanoma that had to be removed in a hospital.  The surgery went well, and the recovery was easier than I expected (not much in the way of pain or bleeding or interfering with daily life).  The tissue got sent to pathology, and the report came back:  "Clear margins."  Hurrah!

--A week ago, the Sunday after Christmas, we decided to do church from a distance.  My mom and dad and I watched the worship service of Lessons and Carols at home.  There was a moment where my mom was changing clothes in the adjacent room, and my dad and I were singing "In the Deep Midwinter."  I thought about Christina Rossetti who composed the poem which provides the words for the hymn.  I thought about how I've taught her poetry in my literature classes and how I used the hymn for a seminary assignment.  And then I thought about how remarkable it is to be singing it with my dad, he in his 80's, me just turned 60.  I want to remember that moment.

--We had lots of intergenerational engagement, which was grand.  At one point, we played pool in the Billiard room as we waited for everyone to get packed for moving over to Ford's Colony.  I couldn't play because of my arm surgery, but happily, we had others.  The younger generation mentioned having a games night.

--On our last night together, we tried a game that one of us got for Christmas, where there are gibberish words on a card with clues, and all the participants try to make sense of them.  That was mildly amusing but ultimately frustrating.

--One of the younger members suggested Charades.  One of us pulled up a Charades app on the phone, and we had an amazing hour of acting out words.  Happily, it wasn't complicated:  the app chose words that we all knew, like Bride or Fishing.  We were all able to play, from the teenagers to the elders in their mid-80's.  We all stayed engaged for hours, and it was the kind of treat that was all the more incredible, since we all knew what a gift it was.