Another Yurt Christmas

Yes, Sharon and I plan to spend this Christmas in a yurt on the Central Coast of California.  After all, everything was going just fine last year, when we “yurted” for the first time — until the pellet stove stopped heating inside our yurt on a quite-cold night — and until the bathroom building outside had a technical difficulty.  The toilet stopped flushing.

If all this sounds a bit strange — especially the part about spending Christmas in a giant tent — it’s really just part of a pattern of untraditional Christmas celebrations the two of us seemingly have specialized in over the many years of our marriage.  Only rarely have we enjoyed the Christmas we all see in movies — or even the Christmases both of us had when we were growing up in and around Fresno.  You know what those celebrations look like — the entire extended family, back together in one dining room, at one table (a table loaded, of course, with food) — and plenty of “nicey-nicey talk” among family members about how wonderful it is to be together on this Special Day of the Year.

Yeah, the two of us have hardly ever had that since we’ve been married.  When we were growing up, our respective parents did, indeed, put on the traditional “Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” type Christmas celebrations.  And both of us remember those days fondly — at least, as much as we can recall, given that our “childhood days” are more than half a century behind us and those memories are increasingly fading.

Since we’ve been together, however, Christmas celebrations have been — well, shall we say “eclectic.”  We’ve spent Christmases at the movies.  Many Christmases at many movies.  We’ve had Christmas Day meals in Chinese restaurants.  We’ve spent one memorable Christmas in London, when Bradley (who was 7) and I made a point of being the last two people out of the legendary Harrod’s Department store as it closed at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

We spent one Christmas Day on a plane, jetting cross-country from California to Washington, D.C. — taking the kids for a never-to-be-forgotten (we hope, anyway) Christmas adventure.  Snow in the nation’s capital.   A tour of the White House at Christmastime.  Nice.

We’ve spent one Christmas in snow-buried Buffalo, where the white stuff often came down so fast and thick, we’d lose our car in a snowdrift in our condo parking lot. But on that one Christmas Eve we spent in snow-town, we were invited to a lively party thrown by one of our TV station’s news anchors. It was, yes, snowing. But they had kids and friends, and on that night, two Californians as guests — who marveled at the ability of Buffalonians to survive and thrive in that harsh climate.  We’ve never gotten over that marvel.

We’ve spent two Christmases in Ames, Iowa.  Lovely small town.  No snow either time.  But on one Christmas Eve, we had gone to the Methodist Church downtown for a late-night service. When it ended and we walked outside, it was freezing and clear — maybe the clearest Christmas Eve sky we would ever experience. We could see, seemingly, a million stars.  It was magical, and I remember that evening, standing in that cold on that sidewalk, to this moment.

We’ve spent several Christmases in San Francisco.  No snow, of course.  Had to work in my TV station newsroom on some of those holidays.  No, it was not fun. Someone once told me what someone else allegedly had said:  San Francisco is the world’s prettiest city — if you’re not too busy working there to notice it.  Well, we noticed.  But we were pretty busy.

We’ve observed Christmases in Los Angeles.  In Atlanta.  In Phoenix. And only the first Christmas we spent in Phoenix stands out, because our station’s great news director, Al Buch, phoned us in the newsroom on Christmas Eve and invited us — all of us — to his house after the 10 p.m. newscast for a party.  I picked up Sharon at our condo, and we joined my other KNPX compatriots at one of the most memorable events I can ever remember being at during the holidays. Thank you, Al.

We spent several Christmases in Paso Robles, which was supposed to be our “retirement” place.  On those Christmas Eves, we went to candlelight church services with our friends and neighbors Paul and Sharon Finlayson — after which they would invite us to their home just down the street to join them for their own Christmas Eve family gatherings. They have children who have children, and it was a raucous, warm, friendly way to spend Christmas Eves.  The best. Thank you, Paul and Sharon.

And now, here we are in 2022.  How in the entire world — by what stretch of anyone’s imagination — has the time — have our lifetimes — passed so fast?  And here we are, in our latest “retirement” home — in Madera County in the heart of California. In some ways, we are following as much “tradition” this year as we ever have.  I’ve put up outdoor Christmas lights again, as I have every year since I first started putting them outside my childhood home down the highway a few miles in Fresno.  That makes it 60 or so years of lighting up the homes we’ve lived in.  And this year, for the first time — I’ve even gone “modern” — LED lights.

We no longer put up an indoor, multi-foot, highly decorated Christmas tree — after all, the kids are grown and gone. But wait!  This year, we’ve put up three small (3-feet) trees — and hung white Christmas mini-lights on each one.  Those lights are shining brightly each night this holiday season, and they spread a whole lot of cheer.

And, yes, we’re heading back to that yurt in a few days. It’s on the ranch our daughter Amy and her significant other, Steve, have in Arroyo Grande.  They use that yurt as an airbnb — at least, when we’re not guests. And, yes, it’s really more than a giant tent.  After all, it has electricity, a kitchen, an eating area, a bedroom area — and even wifi.  No TV, though. Somehow, we’ll make do — “if.”

“If” that stove keeps dropping those pellets into the tray so they can get burned and heat “our” yurt.  Last Christmas, those pellets clogged up the feeder line.  No burning. It got cold. And we’re pretty sure that this year the toilet in the outdoor bathroom building will work.  You see, it was raining quite hard last Christmas — and all that water clogged up the underground septic tank that served the bathroom.  Thus — no flushing.

But there’s no rain in the forecast this Christmas.  That’s good for us, of course, but bad, ultimately, for California, which is in a long, deep drought.  But first things first.  Let the rains come — after Christmas!

So that’s our plan for our latest version of “let’s do something a bit different this Christmas.”  Even Ozzie and Harriet might join us — if they were still around — because they’d consider it just another “adventure” for their TV show.  Merry Christmas to them, to us, and to all of you, good friends!