The Worst Christmas Ever

Christmas break had a very pleasant beginning- Fiery Furnace at Arches.

Unpopular opinion- the technical canyoneering aspect wasn’t that great. I think I’d like to go back and just hike and wander. 

Then I started the two day drive home, stopping in Denver to visit the Tattered Cover. (The bookstore was in a cool space, but I wasn’t that impressed with their collection.) Everything was smooth sailing. I arrived home the night of the 20th and spent the day with my family on the 21st. That night, my brother tested positive for Covid.

This changed everything. Plans had to be canceled… people did not want to be around me when it was likely I would also get sick. No Christmas Eve brunch with the girls, no recording studio… I decided to limit my time at my parents’ house and wear a mask when I was around my aunt and uncle. I spent the next few days hanging out in my aunt’s basement. Christmas Eve was unusually warm, so Nina and I went for a hike at Starved Rock. 

The next morning, my Dad called to say that he had tested positive. It was chaos. There were tears. Christmas was canceled. I had to get a hotel, since it was even more likely I’d get sick. I had to cancel my FreezeFest plans with Jacob and my friends… I didn’t want to risk getting a whole house full of people sick. 

Once that was all decided, I did go over to my parents’ for a while to make the gingerbread forest with my mom. It was a total disaster, but lots of fun. So at least we had that. 

The plan was to head back to Utah. But then I checked the weather, and it was going to be bad all week in Colorado and Wyoming. So I decided to head to the beach in Galveston. 

Galveston was too hot and humid for me. And I did get sick, which probably colored my perspective a bit. The town is trashy… they still have a Hooters there. I tried really hard to be grateful for sunshine and the beach, and I did get in some good reading. But I felt like trash. I was actually disappointed to get a negative result on my Covid test. All that drama and I just had a stupid cold?? 

The best part of the trip was Austin; the only major U.S. city I had never visited. Since I was sick, I couldn’t spend a lot of time indoors. I visited Book People, which now ranks in my top 5 bookstores. 

Then I Googled “best nachos in Austin” and had the best nachos of my entire life.

I spent the night in Lubbock. Driving through rural Texas, windows down, Dixie Chicks playing loudly, sun shining… happiest I’d been in a while. 

I ended up driving 16 hours home the next day. There was bad weather in the Four Corners region, and whiteout conditions in Spanish Fork canyon, but I made it and didn’t leave my house for the next two days. Oh, and Jacob texted to let me know he had Covid, so canceling our trip was the right call. But it still totally sucked. It was a “long December, and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.”