How do we make Christmas what it's supposed to be while living on the road? Tradition, familiar faces, a decorated Christmas tree, stockings hanging from the mantle, the smell of baking cookies? Well, Christmas is Christmas if you're with those you love... and doing what you love. We dedicated Christmas to being with more family than we usually see this time of year, but then we couldn't abandon those traditions of tree and stockings and cookies, either.
We had probably the most memorable Christmas of all this year. We spread it over several states and sprinkled it with all the tradition we love. Our holiday road simply shimmered in Christmas magic.
When Thanksgiving ended and Christmas began-- the Day After Thanksgiving (I will ALWAYS call it that no matter how our society loves having adopted the gloomy "Black Friday" epithet)-- we were parked on my dad's ranch in Mead, Oklahoma. I'd been itching for a cozy Christmas in the trailer and was excited at actually having a fireplace from which to hang stockings this year, and though the fireplace is fake it beats hanging them from an entertainment center like we always had resigned to back on Dorset St. I'd been poking around the Fulltime Families Facebook page and saw The Tree we had to have-- a $49 pencil tree that looked as real as an artificial supermodel thin tree could look-- and I knew what our errand for the week would be.
The Christmas season tickled down upon us in Oklahoma in the fashion of a slow and sneaky snow flurry. Before we knew it, it was here, and excitement danced in the air just as sure as cattle dogs raced through the field after six midnight painted heifers behind our trailer. This home on wheels needed some decorating!
I had actually picked up a few things in the past two months along the way. Whenever I could sneak the opportunity-- at Target in Flagstaff or a Home Goods in ... um, also Flagstaff (Targets are hard to come by on the road!)-- I had collected a stuffed reindeer and a lighted tin cookie cutter-shaped Christmas tree along the way. I worked in a trip or two to Mead's local Big Lots and stacked up the baby's stroller with tree ornaments, garland, and other assortments. Adding in another stop to the WalMart in Sherman, Texas (the nearest town with major amenities to my dad's ranch in Oklahoma), we had acquired our Christmas tree and were in business!
She didn't mind! :) |
After a few cold and blustery days where the tree remained in wait in its box under the steps of our trailer, I lugged the box up into the cozy living room and Evelyn and I got to decorating. After adding our $25 of Big Lots magic, our home was ready to host just the touch of Christmas whimsy we were looking for.
The baking and Christmas crafts commenced! Evelyn and I went about our business of making custom Santa Handprint ornaments for the tree. Brent thought it would be a nice touch to make most of our tree ornaments from scratch this year, so we set about using cookie cutters to cut, bake, and paint even more holiday shapes for the tree. Evelyn also became busy with the chore of drawing Evelyn and Heidi stick figures adorned in glitter glue to cut out and hang from tiny metal hangars for the tree.
Mom was already texting me with pictures of cute crochet stockings she had found. They were in the works and would be waiting for us in California, hand-made with love and adorable. For now, we prepared our mantle with garland and kept that fake fireplace lit in homely, inviting fashion.
There were two very Christmas things we had to do: see Santa and Christmas shop. Since we were in Oklahoma from Thanksgiving through the first of December and planned to hit the road back to California to arrive back December 15, we were left to find our traditions in a new place. We had family to turn to-- my dad and stepmom, Linda. I asked Linda where we could find a Santa. It's not like there was a mall around like we turn to in California. Where do we find Santa if not at The Mall??
She turned to her Kindle and located the only Santa around for at least 50 miles. He would be at Lola's Market and Fruit Stand in Melissa, Texas that weekend only. The exciting news was that he would have one of his reindeer with him!
Luckily, the highways are not too terribly complicated in Oklahoma and Texas, but getting to Santa would mean leaving Brent back at the ranch helping install finishing drywall trim on the newly delivered double-wide (most exciting event, indeed!) and trucking Evelyn and infant Kailyn down the highway over an hour to who-knows-where-the-heck-is-Melissa, Texas.
The girls and I made a day of it, starting at Panera twenty miles down the highway (whoo hoo, Panera!) in Sherman, TX and then continuing down the highway for another hour in our quest for Santa. I checked my Google Map again and again ("Are we there yet?") as we passed exit after exit of rural and more rural towns off the highway.
Finally, we arrived. An old truck with wood panels announced as much and we piled out of the car, bundling up in the dreary weather to find Santa. There was nothing spectacular about the place. It appeared to be a Christmas tree farm in seasonal fashion, but there was no flashing neon light blaring out Santa's location, so what were we to do? These California girls used to bright red arrows or seasonally installed Christmas villages found little fanfare to indicate anything of importance here. How could Santa be here, let alone one of his reindeer??
We peeked our way around Christmas trees and found a white portable canopy fashioned near the fruit stand, itself, with a line of about ten people and their spruced up children trickling out into the tree farm. We stood behind a family with two very portly young boys, who were complaining they didn't want to wait to see Santa and passed the time by playing a slow and panting game of tag, running circles around the nearby wicker benches.
Evelyn in her red hair bow smiled at the round faced little girl in line behind us, who was dressed to the nines to see Santa: black tulle skirt dress with sequined top and spaghetti straps. Her hair was tied back into a hand-smoothed, bumpy pony tail and fastened into place with a blue glittered scrunchy. Her round glasses gleamed as she complained not of the cold (spaghetti straps in 50 degree gloomy weather!) but of not wanting to see Santa. "But think of how jealous your friends will be when they see your picture with him and hear you got to see him," reassured her mom. Evelyn whispered to me, "I like her dress", and then after peering down below her tulle flowering hem, "and her boots". I only then noticed a pair of well-worn and faded cowboy boots to complete this young lady's Santa-picture-perfect-outfit.
Evelyn played a little tag with the two stout boys in front of us and hopped up and down to get a peek of Santa. Despite the small crowd, it was impossible to see into the white tent.
When we could finally see in, Evelyn's eyes went wide: a reindeer! He was so small and cute!
Meeting Nugget, the chicken, who we were told was family and who enjoyed being warmed up in his friend's coat. |
When it was our turn, Santa took his time to ask Evelyn her name and even happily received the hand written list of what she wanted: a horse on a stick, a farm workbook, and Paw Patrol. He showed her how to pet the reindeer and helped her into the sleigh. Kailyn sat next to her in the sleigh and we snapped our few pictures. Santa took the time to hug her goodbye and remembered just what she'd said she wanted.
Our wait for the picture, itself, printed from a printer at the end of a 50 foot extension cord, was five times longer than the wait to see Santa, but Evelyn was happy to use the chance to make new friends and talk to the workers at the stand, who showed her their chickens-- Nugget was her favorite-- and gave her candy canes.
Evelyn and Kailyn with Santa and one of his reindeer |
Holiday shopping was next on our list and the nearest places to shop to our temporary ranch home in Oklahoma was thirty miles away across the border into Texas. There was a Target and other amenities, and the weekend following Thanksgiving crowds there still didn't come close to rivaling what we are used to in Southern California, but we were still looking for somewhere I little more off the beaten path than the most popular shopping center in a 100 mile radius. We certainly found that!
The Midway Mall is about three miles off the highway. We could see its circus tent-like
We followed the two lane country, tree-lined road off the highway and turned right onto a four lane main thoroughfare. We found ourselves passing banks and gas stations and a majority of one-off original store names in small strip malls along the way. Finally, we saw signs for the Midway Mall and made a right turn into a parking lot scarred by gaping cracks that looked like parched veins snaking through the bleached asphalt. Weeds grew from these arteries, some of which towered to at least two feet in height. The condition of the parking lot was that of which occurs after years of abandoned maintenance and use. The size of the parking lot and signage was such that this was once, and seemingly fairly recently, a bustling hub. Now, though, we rolled diagonally across the faded markings of parking stalls toward the other five cars sleeping near the main entrance to the mall.
Our eyes wide and puzzled, we snuggled our truck in with the other few waiting vehicles and piled out of the car, squinting toward the entrance for any indication this place was still in operation. The Sears and Burlington Coat Factory signs invited us in, illuminated despite the lackluster façade, so we headed toward the door.
If we thought the exterior was surprising, the interior completed the package. We stood in a grand entrance to an indoor mall in what was once its center of activity. The skylights three stories up illuminated grand planters with tall trees reaching for an encased sky and the remains of a Food Court, where now only two of ten or twelve eateries were open. To our left was a corridor of any mall anywhere, lined with storefronts. Immediately, I smelled the warm fragrances of holiday time at Bath and Body Works but its single glowing storefront was the only pulse evident in what looked to have been some sort of apocalyptic aftermath.
The Midway Mall is about three miles off the highway. We could see its circus tent-like
white spires rising up over the tree line from the highway. We decided to give it a try for something closer to what we were used to for the holidays-- mall shopping-- and figured we'd have a little variety in choices of shops. We knew there was a Sears, always a preferred store for Brent, and a Burlington Coat Factory there, so we hitched up our shopping boots and prepared ourselves for the marathon.
We followed the two lane country, tree-lined road off the highway and turned right onto a four lane main thoroughfare. We found ourselves passing banks and gas stations and a majority of one-off original store names in small strip malls along the way. Finally, we saw signs for the Midway Mall and made a right turn into a parking lot scarred by gaping cracks that looked like parched veins snaking through the bleached asphalt. Weeds grew from these arteries, some of which towered to at least two feet in height. The condition of the parking lot was that of which occurs after years of abandoned maintenance and use. The size of the parking lot and signage was such that this was once, and seemingly fairly recently, a bustling hub. Now, though, we rolled diagonally across the faded markings of parking stalls toward the other five cars sleeping near the main entrance to the mall.
Our eyes wide and puzzled, we snuggled our truck in with the other few waiting vehicles and piled out of the car, squinting toward the entrance for any indication this place was still in operation. The Sears and Burlington Coat Factory signs invited us in, illuminated despite the lackluster façade, so we headed toward the door.
If we thought the exterior was surprising, the interior completed the package. We stood in a grand entrance to an indoor mall in what was once its center of activity. The skylights three stories up illuminated grand planters with tall trees reaching for an encased sky and the remains of a Food Court, where now only two of ten or twelve eateries were open. To our left was a corridor of any mall anywhere, lined with storefronts. Immediately, I smelled the warm fragrances of holiday time at Bath and Body Works but its single glowing storefront was the only pulse evident in what looked to have been some sort of apocalyptic aftermath.
Not my picture of the mall, but certainly what we saw. |
We slowly rolled the stroller onward, not sure if we should laugh or cry. Store after store, row after row-- chained up, locked up, closed up dark entrances of dead retail. In some cases, signage was removed and only empty, dark boxes of stores remained while the scarring of where the signs had been above their entrances indicated ghosts of what had once been: Jewelry, The Gap, Old Navy. In other cases, though, it almost looked like everyone had packed up in a hurry. The signage remained, many even lit, but the cages over their entrances had been rolled down while fixtures and even some sparse remains of product scattered odd shelves here and there inside.
The carpets of the corridors were stained and torn. There were large diagonal cracks in the walls of the corridors of the mall that reached feebly in pitifully extended arms pleading for help from above. Eerily, Christmas music played from the speakers throughout the corridor and echoed through the emptiness, bouncing only off of the minimal large scale mall Christmas decorations that had been hung: massive ribbons, garland, and banners adorning a weathered and abandoned home and welcoming seemingly no one. We passed only about seven other shoppers as we lapped the entire mall.
Our Christmas shopping experience would have been completely fruitless if not for Sears and Burlington Coat Factory, the largest and fittest to survive this mall's imminent extinction thus far, though Evelyn and Brent did enjoy some time in the mall's only attraction, a children's dream of arcade games, ball pits, bounce houses, and jungle gym slide structures. Seven dollars there kept Evelyn entertained for the hour and a half I spent browsing Burlington. On the way out, we sat in Santa's abandoned chair, as well. We made the most of it and bid adieu to Midway Mall and wished it well as it lives out its golden years.
Evelyn thought we'd get in trouble for sitting in Santa's chair. I assured her that Santa was definitely visiting another mall that day. |
Enjoying Jump 'n Land at Midway Mall, the only thriving business housed there. |
Visiting with Papa Butch in the trailer. |
We had two weeks worth of holiday time with my dad and step-mom in Oklahoma and we intended to spend as much quality time as we could with them. My dad had installed full hook-ups on a leveled pad on his ranch and his home was only a short walk down a gravel road. It was relatively easy (but for 3 month old Kailyn's demands) to visit with them at their house or to visit with the dogs and cattle. It was a special treat to have coffee and chats in our own home and we enjoyed several pop-in visits with Dad, who Evelyn really enjoyed pulling into her crafts and games. He was always pulling her leg, so she was always a little suspect of what he had to say. We looked forward to any time we could squeeze in, since we have never had the pleasure of spending the holidays in Oklahoma with Dad or Linda before.
We also got to spend an evening in Denison, Texas with Linda and my step-brother Reggie and his family. They invited us to go ice skating at the outdoor rink constructed for the holidays. I kept Kailyn bundled up in the stroller and watched the fun along with Linda and my sister-in-law Tisha while the guys slipped and scooted around the rink with the girls.
We also drove through the Holiday Lights display at Loy Lake. True to form, everything is bigger in Texas, and this entire display was larger than life and well worth the donation we left on the way out of the park.
Just two of the dozens of larger than life holiday lights at Loy Lake |
Alas, our holiday clock was ticking in Oklahoma. We knew we needed to get on the road by December 5 in order to get back to California as promised to Evelyn and our families back home for Christmas, but we still had the very important task of celebrating an early Christmas with Dad and Linda.
We enjoyed our very own early Christmas Eve, exchanging gifts and love with Dad and Linda.
It was hard to say good-bye when our date with the highway arrived, but we knew how fortunate we were to be part of the day to day there with Grandma Linda and Papa Butch and were blessed to share some of the holidays together.
The beautiful thing about our portable home is that we have the flexibility to experience the holidays wherever we wander. Our holidays were far from over, but we'd be stretching a week worth of the holidays on the road from through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before we'd see California soil again. We were on our way home for the holidays, and our Holiday Road would take us there.