Wrapping up my 2024 winter holidays

My winter holidays have come to an end, and I am slowly settling back into life in Scotland. However, as I’ve made this trip so often over the last three years, I’ve become much better at the settling-in phase – and I’m hopeful that my jetlag will be minimal this time around.

I arrived in mid-December and left on 20^th January – a longer stay because I was going to help Dad with a couple of tasks later in January. The longer visit meant that I got to watch the inaugural address before leaving for the airport. I can’t decide if I’m happy about that or not, but I am definitely happy that I had more time with Dad.

Once again, my visit was a mix of holiday fun and shenanigans with chores peppered in here and there. And work, too. Mostly marking student assessments and other admin tasks. I gave myself the task of clearing out one of the back closets in the upstairs of the house. That meant sorting through a lot of books, most of which were donated to Goodwill. A large stack of Hardy Boys books was spared from Goodwill in favour of Cameron. As always, there were also a few interesting bits and bobs to sort through as well. Including some cool old toys and some wallpaper (which I’ll tell you about later).

We spent Christmas split between a couple of my sisters’ houses. We began with Christmas Eve with Royann and her family, then enjoyed Christmas morning with them. After the carnage of unwrapping presents was finished, we travelled to Celeste’s house for Christmas dinner with her family and friends – it was a perfect opportunity to give her the scarf I made for her and for Daddy to give her a set of 12 Days of Christmas ornaments. We stayed the night at her house and made our way back to Royann’s on Boxing Day.

For New Year’s Eve, we opted to stay home in Cle Elum. By this point, Dad was sick (flu, boo!) so we skipped the planned steak and potatoes meal in favour of breakfast: Grilled sausage, fried eggs, hashbrowns, and toast. Delicious! After dinner, we enjoyed a quiet evening watching a film, and then I went to bed before midnight! (as normal for me).

I didn’t manage a polar plunge this year, which is disappointing, but sometimes things don’t quite work out as planned. In the first instance, Daddy was not feeling well, so I didn’t want to drag him out to act as my plunge support when he should be home in the warmth. A later attempt failed a couple of days later because my courage wasn’t up for it. (I feel bad about that, but that’s life.)

This year’s holiday included plenty of chores around the house for Daddy. And plenty of fun with family and friends. It also included pottery painting and tattoos with a couple of my nephews, and much laughter and joy with various other nieces and nephews. And towards the end, plans were started for a family visit to Scotland, spearheaded by one of my nieces.

And let’s not forget all the geocaching, another gingerbread house with my Godson, another batch of Grandma’s Christmas cookies, and the food. All the lovely, delicious food!

I was home for a little over five weeks, and yet I feel that I wasn’t home long enough. (Despite also feeling like I was missing my Scottish home!) But now that I am home in Scotland, I can start thinking about my summer holidays home to America. But I can also begin to think about all the wonderful things I have in store here in Scotland, where I’ve made my home.

As always, below are some photos from my winter holidays in the homeland. You can also see other holiday-related photos on these blog posts:

The Twelve Days of Christmas
From Scraps to Scarves
Painting with my Nephews
Random December (2024)
Random January (2025)