Christmas Letter - 2019
Online preview of tedious Christmas card insert
I will start with a note on this year’s choice of Christmas cards. For a number of years we have been receiving mailings with a few “free” Christmas cards every fall from charitable organizations hoping we will give them money. They figure (rightly) that we will be too frugal to throw away perfectly serviceable cards and (wrongly) that they can guilt us into sending them money to pay for the cards. And the cards pile up. This year we decided that the pile was getting excessive and we would send some out. So, if you get a card promising to support The Foundation for Very Short Men Who Can’t Afford Sports Cars or advocating for Vegan Cat Food that’s why. We are sending them to spread holiday cheer and to deputize our friends and family to throw them away for us since we cannot do so ourselves
Amber attempting (for the umpteenth time) to get a photo with Santa for the grandparents
We had Christmas at home last year. Chris and Reid came over and we did the usual pleasant Christmas stuff. Since it was the McPherson in-laws turn for the grandkids at Christmas we had an opportunity to set up a tree and get out the Christmas Village -- things we don’t get to do when we are off to Oregon for Christmas with the grands. It was very nice but Christmas always seems a bit too quiet without small children around so we were all glad to head off to Florida where we met Amber, Lee, and the grandchildren for a New Years celebration with family in St Petersburg and Tampa, and then a trip to Disney World to bother the mouse, with a side trip to Universal to harry the Potter fans.
Christmas Village set up on even-numbered years.
We saw Amber, Lee, and the grands again when we met them in Paris. Lee has family in France and he, Amber and the kids were going to a big family get together in the Alps. They took an extra week beforehand to visit parts of France and Spain with Irene and me. Lee and Amber both speak fluent French and it was wonderful having them as translators and tour guides. We saw many of the obligatory tourist attractions in Paris, Avignon, and Barcelona. Paris was fascinating, vibrant, poorly air-conditioned, and very, very hot. We took a day trip by train from Paris to Versailles where we saw the palace, which was impressive … and very, very hot. The famous fountains were lovely but they won’t let you climb in to cool off. In the portrait galleries I noticed that the kings of France all appeared to wear the same natty wig for several hundred years. The grand galleries with the painted ceilings and marble floors are marvels but of limited appeal to small children. I was impressed by the echoes that Sophie managed to get when she balked at proceeding and yelled “NO!” at the top of her lungs. I could see that our fellow tourists were impressed, too.
Four hundred years of French kings. One natty-looking wig.
Avignon was beautiful, historic, and also hot. We made an excursion to Pont du Gard, a 2000 year old Roman bridge/aqueduct that spans the Gardon river fifteen miles east of Avignon. It’s a lovely place with swimming in the river, kayaking, cliff jumping, picnicking, constant photo-ops, and a chance to wade in the shallows and cool off… if you bring shoes that can get wet. The river’s stony bottom makes for uncomfortable walking for large barefoot adults. I had my usual big, black Frankenstein shoes and had to content myself with taking photos from the shore.
The McPherson family at Pont du Gard
[At this point in the writing of this letter we took a week off for Lee to catch this season’s cold, and for Irene, not to be outdone, to have her gallbladder removed and then catch the cold. We are both fully recovered and I need to find a different excuse to procrastinate on the Christmas letter.]
We took a train from Avignon to Barcelona which is filled with amazing architecture, friendly people, and pickpockets. My pocket was picked twice in metro stations. The first time they got my wallet. I only had a little cash but having to cancel my credit cards was a nuisance since any time I wanted to buy anything for the rest of the trip I had to find Irene. I felt like a three-year-old tugging on his mom’s skirt in a toy store. The second time, the pickpockets scored a diaper stuffed in my back pocket -- in case someone needed a change while we were out and about. I wish them joy with it.
We said goodbye to Amber and family in Barcelona. They departed to visit with the other side of their family and Irene and I boarded the Norwegian Epic for a cruise that zig-zags back and forth across the Mediterranean until Tuscany and Provence are totally blurred together in your mind. Both are lovely. We saw many of the usual sites and sights. We did whirlwind tours of Cannes, Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Pompei, Pisa, etc.. It was particularly hot in Pompei, which added to the experience but, since there was no smell of sulfur, the heat was probably weather, not Vesuvius. Rome was also hot, except for one spot, half way down the Long Gallery in the Vatican, where open-arched windows let in a minute of blessed coolness from the downflow that preceded the rain in a brief thunderstorm that was over when we exited the Vatican, to find Rome steaming and still hot.
Irene in Pompei, Vesuvius
Being cheapskates, we had booked no-assigned-seat tickets and our flight from Barcelona to Toronto ran out of cheap seats, so they had to put us in first class. We were flying Qatar Air and the first class seating was those modules that recline all the way flat to make a bed with real pillows and blankets. The meals, and snacks, and adult beverages, and movies, and the occasional comfy nap, all helped the time pass painlessly. … And apparently quite a bit of time passed because when we arrived in Toronto we had missed our connecting flight and the US customs was closed for the night. The next available flight was the following evening so the airline comped us a hotel room and a meal voucher. We used our bonus day to see the Toronto aquarium which is a marvel.
Since returning from Europe we have rested up, cooled down, and caught up with work. Lee traveled to Pueblo, Colorado for work and spent a few days in Baton Rouge, Louisiana visiting with friends at a GFMPH* retreat. We also spent a weekend with friends Bill Ritch and Caran Wilbanks in Myrtle Beach where we visited Brookgreen Gardens and played Putt-Putt golf.
We will be flying to Portland, Oregon in a few days for Christmas with the grandchildren.
Wishing all of you a joyous Christmas season and a safe, happy, and prosperous new year.
Lee and Irene Haslup
Cary, NC
*Google for it, if curious.
Photo of Irene and Lee taken by salesman who sold us a used car.
Another photo of wiggly grand children with stately Mt. Hood in background.
The McPhersons. Photo taken by a pro who outlasted the squirming children.
I had to get Chris to provide this Christmas proof-of-life photo. We see Reid and him
a couple of times a week so there is never an event requiring that I point a camera at them.
If you suspect you are not on our snail-mail Christmas list but would still like a card from us, just print out this message, fold it in quarters, and insert it into one of your unsolicited non-profit Christmas cards, and write "Merry Christmas from the Haslups" on it.
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