So last Christmas I thought since we couldn’t be “at home” for Christmas with family and friends, that we should be somewhere very far away so the girls wouldn’t feel weird. So we traveled all the way to Thailand! Wow you say – how fabulous! I thought so too – but not the girls! They later told me that opening presents in a hotel room where it was 90* outside and sitting at the hotel pool just didn’t cut it! I messed up it seems!
Not soon after we arrived back here in Abu Dhabi after our summer in the States, the girls announced that they wanted to go somewhere cold for Christmas. I’m sorry what did you say? Cold?!!! Oh no – that is going to be a problem! But they began explaining that they hadn’t seen snow since we had left NY in 2004 and that their fondest Christmas memories were of snow, winter clothing and building snowmen in NY. Oh this was going to be hard. But then I thought back to my childhood and I too had wonderful memories of snow and bundling up to go skating or sledding with friends. How could I deprive my girls of these wonderful Holiday memories?!! But how were we going to get Leon to agree to this? He really doesn’t like the cold!
But after the initial shock wore off and we talked to our friends who had lived in Europe, we decided to travel to Prague and Vienna for this Christmas season. The girls were ecstatic!!!!! Sara was already dreaming of a white Christmas! I must admit it was really nice to see that they were so happy about our travel plans!
Obviously we hadn’t decided on this while we were still in Florida where we actually had winter gear. So the process of collecting cold weather items began! One might think this would be difficult to do in a desert but many people travel to Europe for skiing. And surprisingly enough I had brought a number of cashmere sweaters with me! But boots, gloves and of course coats would be needed. The girls loved shopping for these items. It killed me to have to buy coats! Especially for me as I had more than my fair share back in Florida! (For those of you who don’t know me that long, I was the Overcoat buyer for Bloomingdale’s in my prior life! One might say that coats was my fetish back then – replaced now by pashminas!) Anything left in Florida for the girls wouldn’t have fit them anyway so I didn’t mind that too much. We were lucky to be able to take advantage of some sales going on, and the opening of a new Marks and Spencers in our Mall was helpful!
Luck would have it that Leon was asked to travel back to Florida just 10 days before our trip! Harris’ new CEO had just started and they wanted Leon there for the reviews! This was great timing! But poor Leon – the list of what to bring back was a bit extensive!
With a week to go before our departure we were pretty set! Of course Santa would also help with the delivery of some cold weather gear! The girls had decided that after last year’s “disaster” on Christmas day, they wanted us to celebrate Christmas before we left. Oh but they also wanted to open some gifts on Christmas day in Vienna! How many presents do you think you’re getting I asked? While I did think this would be strange – it did mean I wouldn’t have to take all the presents with me! This might not be so bad!
Cold weather here we come!
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