Christmas in the Camper

reprinted from the AARP.org website

CHRISTMAS IN TUCSON
By Carol Ann
(CHRISTMAS IN 2003)
On Christmas Eve, our home-on-wheels was decorated with a 24” Christmas tree, complete with lights, berries, and an angel top. It was placed strategically on the top shelf of a triple-tear shelf that held family pictures. My birthday cards were placed over the front door and the Christmas cards were hung throughout the motorhome. My favorite animated, blue-eyed, brunette Christmas Angel, holding a lighted candle, wearing a white and gold dress and white silk wings, adorned the front window along with a lighted Christmas wreath to send the message of Love and Peace to all those who passed by. A beautiful sequin Christmas tree ornament, sent to me by my friend Maki, hung over the front door too. I had a couple of gold angel ornaments I wanted to hang from the sun visors, but I didn’t have any string . . . so I used dental floss. Any one who knows me, knows I love angels. Therefore I had numerous angels throughout the motorhome, including a musical snow globe, complete with angel and lamb that played Angels We Have Heard on High . . . a gift from my niece Donna.

A Christmas Eve midnight service was on television as I snuggled into bed with Jim, my partner of 42 years. The comfort of the message of the new born savior and the songs that I knew so well from singing in numerous choirs sent me gently into a very peaceful sleep.

Christmas morning broke with a brilliant sun and bright blue sky. I read my Daily Word and Simple Abundance messages and then wrote in my Gratitude Journal all the many blessings that I was truly grateful for each and everyday. Jim made breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice. I played a CD, Listen! It’s Christmas, by Johnny Mathis. Since Jim prepared breakfast, I cleaned up. Typically whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean up too. Our present to each other was tickets to see a show featuring The Coasters, Platters and The Drifters at the Desert Diamond Casino on January 8th. For those of you who are not old enough, they were top popular singing groups in the 50’s and 60’s. Then we called our family members and friends to wish them all a Very Merry Christmas. We sent Hershey Christmas gifts to our sons and families the first week in December, so I didn’t have the last minute rush that many people struggle with. Conveniently a public library, only a quarter of a mile from our campground, that had computers and Internet connections, allowed us to order everything on line. It eliminated the problems of what to get, because our whole family loves chocolate. It also took care of the problem of shipping too.

We signed up to share Christmas dinner with other campers at the Rincon Country West Resort, in the auditorium at 1 PM. There were 16 people to a table and we were assigned to table #11. Everyone brought some portion of the meal. I volunteered to bring salad or a veggie plate. I purchased coleslaw from Walmart, but their prepared veggie plate was $12.95. With celery and sour cream only eighty-eight cents each, it didn’t take an accountant to figure out it made more sense to make the plate myself. Since I didn’t bring many serving dishes on the road, I had to think “out-of-the-box” to find a serving plate big enough to hold celery, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, broccoli crowns, olives and dip of course. I had purchased some meat that just happened to be placed in an oversized, plastic, red and white container. I re-wrapped the meat and placed it in the freezer, using anti-bacterial dish detergent, washed out my new serving plate and placed a disposable small container in the middle of the tray, for the dip, that just happen to be a perfect fit. I dressed up the coleslaw with halves of cherry tomatoes and broccoli crowns and went early to the dinner to meet our new dining partners.

We met couples from California, Iowa, Indiana and Florida. Some were full-time RVer’s, some traveled on the road for several years and now settled down in park model homes here in Tucson. The couple from Indiana still owned a home in Indiana, but spent their first winter away in Florida, the second in Texas and decided to try Arizona this winter. We all shared adventures and information about the location of the rest of our families, along with a delicious ham dinner, complete with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, peas and carrots, rolls and numerous homemade deserts of various pies. The auditorium was full of the growing legion of adventure-seeking or snowbirds that have decided to enjoy their retirement years.

We decided to take a short nap after stuffing ourselves. We noticed some clouds in the sky before we rested. We have learned from experience, clouds can mean a beautiful sunset. So after a refreshing nap, we loaded up the car at 4:30 PM, with our camera equipment and headed for McCain Loop in Tucson Mountain Park. It’s a desert park only about a 15-minute drive from our campground. We picked a different location than we typically used. This one was from a lower vantage point. We weren’t disappointed. Sure enough as the sun began to sink behind the clouds, the sky lit up in colors of brilliant gold and then changing to crimson red. Above us and behind us the light reflected off a variety of clouds of all shapes and designs, in majestic colors of pink and lavender that filled the sky and hugged the mountains that surrounded us. Jim was busy focusing his 35mm camera on the actual sunset, when I told him to look up and around. It was like being in one of those 360 degree Omni theaters, but better . . . it was limitless. This wasn’t a re-creation . . . this was the real deal. Every place you looked was a painted sky of breathe-taking, magnificent colors. I don’t believe there are words to adequately describe what I saw. More radiant than all the man-made Christmas lights put together. Then I heard something in the distant mountain range. It sounded like coyotes howling in the distance. But I wondered if it wasn’t just kids howling at Gates Pass and the sound carried. All of a sudden a coyote approximately 50 yards at the 2 o’clock position from where Jim and I were standing, let out with an unmistakable howl, followed by more yelps and howls. We stood motionless in our wonderment of actually standing in the wilderness, much like the environment that Mary and Joseph had to cross that faithful night over 2,000 years ago, and hearing the sounds of nature. Not a caged in a zoo, but we were in their environment. At this point, I had wished Jim and I stopped longer at the visitors center to learn more about the traits of the coyotes and how we should respond. Our car was a couple of hundred feet away. It did sound like a lone coyote close to us, so right or wrong . . . I felt we weren’t in imminent danger. When the coyote left, Jim and I just shook our heads in disbelief at this wonderful Christmas gift of experiencing God’s sights and sounds of the season.

Yes, Jim and I would say this was a perfect Christmas! Hope you have a perfect holiday too!