...Christmas in California and Montana

Dear Reader: We just returned from our annual Christmas trip to California and Montana. Due to the number of activities and the excessive amount of photos I took I will create several blog entries over the next few days which will chronicle our travels in the order they happened. Check back frequently for updates.

Emily drove our luggage cart when we arrived at the airport in San Francisco.


This is the "mini" van we rented.

Laura and Emily play Christmas music on Grandma Mary Jeanne's piano.

The annual flaming plum pudding. The lights must be turned out when it is served to get the full effect.

Grandma Mary Jeanne displays the mug given to her by Emily.

We arrived in California in the middle of the night. After collecting our luggage we made our way to the rental car desk where we filled out forms and pushed our cart out to parking lot to get the mini van we had reserved. We watched in astonishment as a huge 13 passenger van pulled up and stopped. The agent got out and handed us the keys. "We don't have any mini vans right now and we don't know when we will get one in," the agent said. "You can take this one and we will pay for the gas." Mrs. Hufford and I looked at each other and shrugged. Then we started laughing. What else could we do? We could wait longer into the night/morning for a true mini van, or we could hop in the white monstrosity before us and make tracks for Healdsburg. So, that's what we did.

I drove as Mrs. Hufford navigated through the streets of San Francisco. We made our way down 19th Avenue to the Golden Gate Bridge where the wind was blowing wildly causing our van to shudder and sway as we crossed over Golden Gate Strait. We eventually made it to Sonoma County and pulled into Healdsburg just after midnight. The next morning we woke up to warm sunshine and clear skies. The weather remained that way for the rest of our time in California. It was a welcome change to the weather we had been having in Alaska.

The days that followed were filled with food, playing the game 'Telephone' after meals, shopping, and getting ready for Christmas Day. We did take a drive to Alexander Valley one afternoon where we visited the grounds of White Oak. It was a nice place and we joked how we could have picked up a basketball team along the way if we wanted to--we had room for them in our van for sure. On Christmas Eve afternoon we went to see the movie, "The Princess and the Frog," which we enjoyed very much. Then we opened presents later that evening. On Christmas morning we went to Mass and then spent the remainder of the day preparing for dinner guests. The main event of the meal was a flaming plum pudding which is an annual affair. The lights have to be turned out before it enters the dining area in all its flaming glory in order to get the full effect. This year the flames lasted for a long time and everyone enjoyed it until it burned out at which time it was served. The dinner conversation was interesting and spanned a multitude of topics including: politics, aliens, cats, Dora the Explorer, big white vans, Pixar studios, the weather, and Sarah Palin. It was great listening to everyone talk and hear their points of view on so many things. I also need to point out that as I sat around the table I noticed that of the 11 people seated only two of us were gainfully employed. The others were either too young for jobs (2) or retired (7) (I had to write that sentence for my mother-in-law). After the guests left we made quick work of cleaning up and everyone went to sleep with pleasant memories of another Christmas Day.

The next morning we woke up to more sunshine and packed our bags into the van for the drive back to San Francisco where we caught our flights for Montana, which will be the next installment of...Christmas in California and Montana.