The intention was good. Our planning ought to have been sufficient. We left the house at 3 this afternoon, heading for a tree lighting ceremony that was supposed to happen around 8 this evening. We took a short detour to see the first place my parents bought down here, a small vacation spot that was Villages-adjacent. (They sold it not long after.) We parked and scouted out a spot to hang out, intending to watch the dancing and live music and whatnot until the main event. It was so crowded at 4 pm that we ended up just setting down our folding chairs behind the stage enclosure, and going out on walks in smaller groups, leaving someone behind to watch the stuff. More and more and more people streamed in after us. It became almost unbearably crowded. After a while, my dad had just gotten over it, and we packed up and left before the tree was lit. (To be clear, once he voiced a desire to go, not a single one of us argued.) It was cool and all, but we can go back and get pictures of us next to that tree tomorrow after dark, and in ten years when we look back at photos, we will not remember that it was on two different nights.
We tried to come home and watch Christmas movies. We couldn't find the ones we wanted for free on any of the streaming services, so while we were at Walmart, my daughter bought DVD copies to watch. Once here, we learned that they had a DVD player, yeah, but it wasn't actually hooked up to anything, and they didn't feel like trying to remove an 80+ inch TV off the wall to hook up an hdmi cable. No matter how many times I said to just buy Rudolph on my Apple TV, I was fine with it, no one wanted to pay for it yet again, so we watched Beauty and the Beast instead. Val ended up going to bed halfway through it, but we stayed up to finish it.
Even though a few of the scheduled events have gone a little sideways, we are accomplishing what we came here to do, and that was to spend quality time together. We are getting caught up, and Val is learning just how big and fun and varied her family is. So really, mission accomplished.
No comments:
Post a Comment