The Year We Got Away for Christmas

Sixteen years ago my husband and I had been married for several years, were dual-income with no kids, and awfully worn out from many Christmas breaks spent driving umpteen hours to visit both our parental families in separate states on our few days off. In fact Christmas of 1992 was so stressful in between driving through three states to visit one family the 23^rd to 26^th and the other the 27^th to 29^th of December and not spending any time at our first new house--that we vowed the following year to treat ourselves to a getaway. I’m leaving out half of the story but trust me when I say Christmas break was the pits, and back to work we went, you know with the one or two week’s of vacation days off per year.

True to our vow, the following year we made plans for a getaway Christmas alone and made memories we still share all these years later. One family member did not understand and gave us a hard time before Christmas saying it was not a good idea. Another family member thought it was a great plan—that Michele and her Hubs would always have this one year where we did our own thing for Christmas.

We drove to Charleston, SC on 12/20 and stayed three nights at a lodge that had been built in the 1700’s. We had long lunches, explored shops and old houses.

On 12/23 we drove up the coast of South Carolina and into North Carolina. I had found a bed and breakfast in Beaufort, NC (near Ocracoke Island and areas where Blackbeard would hang out). This was before the internet and corresponded with the Inn on the phone to make our arrangements. As we got closer we passed some dilapidated houses, not sure what our bed and breakfast would look like. Hubs was teasing, “OK, what have you signed us up for???” No worries—our B&B was charming with a two-room suite on the upper floor and a gourmet restaurant for dinner on the main level, and as you can imagine we had the whole place to ourselves except for dinnertime.

The family who ran the B&B was a couple in their late 40’s and they had two sons and two daughters between the ages 16 to 24 or so—some home from college. The wife was the gourmet cook and the kids helped out as the waiters and helpers. On Christmas Eve night we were in our room that looked like this:

And we heard this huge family fight downstairs late at night. One son said loudly, “Of course you take his side! I have ALWAYS been the black sheep in this family!” There was shouting and arguing and maybe a sob or two. We were under the covers listening to this and couldn’t help but laugh a little. On Christmas morning we found a bottle of wine from Santa outside our door.

At breakfast the mom apologized and hoped we hadn’t heard too much or that they hadn’t been too loud. Hubs said, “No need to apologize. It was just like being at home!”

In Beaufort we also had some wonderful lunches out, explored many houses and cemeteries from the 1700’s, and browsed in tiny seaside shops decorated for the holidays. We drove back home on 12/26.

A few years later we had our first baby and we stay at our home for Christmas ever since. And every year we reminisce about the time that we needed our special getaway Christmas.