Christmas in the ROC

December 31st, 2005 · No Comments

A busy holiday season has come to a close here in Rochester, one which began ten days ago with the arrival of my parents and ended last night with our return to the ROC after a quick trip to see Aimee’s family in Rhode Island.

Mom and Dad came in from Alaska and Scott and Sarah in from Virginia last week, and we saw the sights of the Rochester area: Wegmans (big and busy), The Corning Museum of Glass (fascinating), George Eastman House (great daguerreotype exhibit), Dinosaur Bar-B-Que (tasty, but worth a 2:45 wait from door to food?), and a new one for us, The King and I for dinner – the best Thai I’ve had in awhile.

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It was a fun week, though it would have been nicer without the rain and if the pilot light for the heater hadn’t gone off on Christmas Eve, but you can’t have it all, right? We had a great night of Cranium in which we discovered some hidden talents (and lack thereof) in the family, and Aimee also made a startling discovery that night: she found online a version of the poem “Santa’s Cake,” which we all thought was original to our family (everyone but Dad, apparently), a poem we’ve read every Christmas Eve, passed down from Mom’s grandfather. The poem hadn’t made it into our parents’ luggage for the trip out to NY, so Aimee tried to look it up online, and, lo and behold, found a version very nearly like the one we always read. It was a strange moment, but we were happy to have the help in trying to recall all of the lines.

Scott and Sarah left on the 27th, and we dropped Mom and Dad off at the airport early the next morning before taking off for Portsmouth, where we spent some quality time with Jack and Faith, as well as their parents and grandparents. It was a brief trip but it had it all: playing cars with Jack, opening Christmas presents, meals with family and friends, multiple viewings of Mary Poppins, football on the new widescreen TV, and looking at wedding photos. Now we’ve got three days before work and school start again, time to relax, clean up the house after a week of guests, and enjoy the new-fallen snow.

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Tags: Rochester · Travel