Christmas 2017

Judy. I have to admit, it’s a strange Christmas season. Granted, for the past few years, we’ve celebrated Christmas Day together or with other “orphaned parents,” as our kids—rightfully—celebrate on their own or with in-laws. The day itself has not been as important as the fact that we DO gather at some point to eat and open gifts. But this year the kids’ work schedules are such that we celebrate with one family one day, and the other, the next. Don’t get me wrong—I’ll take what I can get—it’s just one more new experience.

Add to that, with no house of our own, there are no decorations. We left our Airbnb a week ago, and are house sitting for friends who are in Florida. We did get a big (for Atlanta) snow, unheard of in early December, but it’s long gone. For someone to whom Christmas morning has always been magic, the change has been, well, different.

As with so many of our new experiences, though, there are gifts that have come our way. Most notably, I truly have time to enjoy Advent, my favorite church season. Gifts, such as they are (we prefer to give experiences), were bought long ago, and there are no decorations to dig out and hang. We’ve been able to avoid the horrible traffic most of the time. Our days are spent reading, walking, visiting friends, and enjoying our lives. Staying with friends in the mountains, we went to a Christmas pageant at a nearby church. We attended a magnificent Advent Lessons and Carols, and I’m reading Kathleen Norris’s book, Amazing Grace. The period of waiting is aided by the gloomy skies, and I find a strange comfort in that. New life is coming.

I look forward to the separate celebrations with my family, and to a Christmas visit with my brother and sister-in-law for a few days. We used to see each other every Christmas, but life has made that far too difficult in the past few years. Yes, it’s different, and really quite lovely—a gift of new experiences.

What's next?

Ted. As we come to the end of our first year as nomads, a question we are often asked is, “Have you gotten this out of your system and decided to settle down?” Not really. As Rick Steves would say, we plan to “Keep on travelin’!” However, our experiences in 2017 are shaping our plans for 2018.

For instance, I discovered that Face Time is great but, after a while, I really miss hugging my 3 grandsons.  

Parker (15) & Caedmon (5)

Oliver (11 months)

My preference now is to not be away from Atlanta for more than three months at a time. We have also realized that we only need about a month to get caught up with our family and friends here.

When we moved out of our apartment last year, we put a number of items into a 10’x10’ storage unit with the thought that we could quickly furnish an apartment should our new lifestyle prove unsatisfactory. We have decided that this will not happen anytime soon so are working to shrink this pile of "stuff" into a unit about half that size.  

Our experience in Oaxaca taught us the merits of an extended stay. In the future, we will mix long term stays with ramblings.

With all of this in mind, we are beginning to map out our travel plans for 2018. We are planning three 3-month stints separated each time by a month back in Atlanta.

Our first junket begins in early January. We will visit several friends in Florida and then fly to Spain on Jan 17. This is partially due to the fact that flights to Europe are much cheaper from Florida than from Atlanta. We have rented an apartment in the town of Cádiz for two months. Not only is this a beautiful town on the Atlantic coast of Andalusia, it is very near Sevilla where our Spanish "son" Alex lives with his wife and 2 children. Alex lived with us for a year as an exchange student in the 90’s and we have remained very close. We look forward to several visits with our Spanish family during that time. On March 14, we will travel to Aix-en-Provence in southern France where we have booked an apartment for a month. We have always loved France and, after a year studying Spanish, it will be nice to relax back into French. We will also rendezvous with some longtime (not old) friends Don and Catherine who live in France. In late April, we will head for home via Devon in England where we will visit with Bill and Mary, whom we have not seen in quite a while.

After a month in Atlanta, we plan to travel to Atlantic Canada for three months, return to Atlanta for a month and then take three more months in Europe. One constraint on our European travel is something called the Schengen Agreement, which limits our visits on that continent to 90 days out of every 180. High priorities for this trip will be to visit friends in Poland and meet up with our family who lives in Hungary.

Have you noticed a theme here? Some of our favorite memories of 2017 are celebrating our 40^th anniversary with Georgia friends and family in Hungary, snorkeling with Georgia friends in Hawaii and exploring a Kauri forest in New Zealand with a Swedish friend. While we have enjoyed meeting new people during our travels around the world and hope to see many of them again, we also believe that our travels actually strengthen our long time connections to friends and family. I am reminded of a little song my daughter, Leslie learned as a Girl Scout; “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.”