It felt like we were finally able to breathe after preparing for and then going through Christmas and it was time to leave to move on to the Woodstock(ish) area. It was not our most relaxing Christmas in Stowe but we won't be staying in that house again so we shouldn't hold it against the place. (The layout sucked.) We usually start to get a little bored or feel like "we've seen everything and had a good amount of relaxation and our favorite stuff" but this was just chaos/exhaustion from arrival to Christmas day. We bid adieu to Stowe and when we checked in to the new place it had some great features that allowed us to relax. I was happy to see that they still had some lighted garland on the fireplace so I wouldn't even need to decorate!
A scan of the network showed no spy cams like we had in the previous house (which I immediately unplugged) and the only cleaning we needed to do was taking down some pretty massive cobwebs in two high traffic spots that we can't believe the women who vacated that morning dealt with. This is basically unheard of for us. I usually have to spend hours cleaning the house including re-washing sheets in unscented detergent and these smelled like steamed hotel sheets with no high irritant detergent to wash out. We braced ourselves for 'vacation pizza' (aka-bad) for dinner as is tradition from a one blink town and were pleasantly surprised it was actually good!
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This was starting out unusually well! Obviously I didn't trust it. 😄
We tried poking around downtown Woodstock a few times but it was overrun with entitled snoots and ski douches. (Ski douche - (skee /do͞oSH/) noun- loud, obnoxious member of a 'bro-ish' ski clan that act like a fraternity on pow.) We went somewhere we knew they'd never go which was to my favorite antique shop Wigren Barlow.
Those cookie cutters? I actually had one of them with us!! (The Santa imprint is in the dough from Monday's post.) I never thought I'd see them in the wild again and I wanted to buy them so much because the Santa, angel and tree are big parts of our Christmas tradition but $28 was too rich for my blood so I took a pic. The store is on the pricey side but their books are usually reasonable. I found this one I was interested in and once I saw the inscription, I was sold:
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| "Just think...with any luck, someone will pick these up in a flea sale, tag sale or in an old book shop in the 2020's and reread this message. I hope they too have a friend like you. Happy Birthday Sara! Love Bina (or Gina) 4/97" |
It didn't feel like enough time had passed for 2020's to be another lifetime and this book to end up there but when you recognize it was 25 years ago, you also realize you're probably going to be dust in the wind sooner than you'd like. I'll write my own inscription on the back of that page for someone else to find in 25+ years. We moved on to the Vermont Antique Mall in Quechee which was way more crowded than I cared for but it's a cool spot to check stuff out and there are a lot of other smaller stores attached to it that we darted through.
My bestie gave me a gift card to a restaurant that we knew we'd have better luck with in a second location because the first one was being an a-hole about take out. The Mr ordered the second they opened and we ate it in the lit up town square as dusk fell. We hadn't really gotten to do any Christmas related activities at all the entire season so I wanted to go up the road to the Joseph Smith LDS Memorial which had a nice little light display you could drive through for free.
That night we were greeted with a loud thud as we were watching Netflix. We remembered that sound from our first Christmas in Stowe. The sound of globs of ice and snow falling on the metal roof. There would be no sleep for me with the sound of tardy reindeer falling out of the sky all night/morning long. The next day I got an adrenaline jolt from someone on the Mr's side refusing to listen to him and sending something he told him not to send because we wouldn't be home. Now it was out for delivery advertising to everyone that we were gone and this is after having a doorcam run in with an unsavory who seemed to be casing our place. I can't really ask my fam because in the past they've acted like we live in Siberia for a swing by despite only living a mile from where Grandma lived when she was alive. It finally got worked out when my wonderful friend said he was more than happy to stop by once his partner got off work at 10pm and they live 20 miles from us! We chatted with them at 10:30pm that night through the doorbell cam so grateful we had someone in our lives willing to help us out of a jam and I could "unclench my cheeks" as I told him.
In between clenches, we went to a small town we like to swing by on our way to the Vermont Country Store. The lady who always has currant scones on the ready only had one left so no go on that and another strike out or two from some other places. We stopped by the antique mall there and they had some interesting wares:
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| (Those demon toddlers will haunt your dreams) |
We made our way to the country store and as suspected it was crowded AF but we had favorites to get. So I blasted through there like I was on a game show:
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New Years Eve was completely uneventful and not remotely how I wanted to spend it. The next day, I declared we were starting the year doing absolutely nothing on purpose. We saw someone stayed logged into their HBOMax account on the tv so we watched A Christmas Story Christmas on their account. We're not huge fans of the original (about every 5 years is good enough for us) so I'm sure fans of that would love it. I felt like the acting was flat except for Julie Hagerty from Airplane! who was perfectly cast as the mom. The ending was good though so it wasn't a total pooper and the Mr liked it. We went downstairs to read where I started the Janet Evanovich book Metro Girl from the bazillion books the owner has in the house while the Mr read his Kindle then went into the sauna. He basically boiled in his own pudding since the thermostat wasn't regulated and got up to 230 in there. 😐 Um, I put the oven on 200 to hold things while making brunch and the meat always slightly overcooks so pretty sure he was 10 more minutes away from being turkey sausage.
Before we knew it, it was our last full day. It was our last chance to see downtown and hopefully get in a little shopping without the crowds and thankfully it was much less crowded than the previous times we were there.
We could watch glass blowing for hours. If you haven't watched Blown Away on Netflix, highly recommended for something mesmerizing and relatively drama free.
The next morning we stayed until check out and then started our way back. Fog turned to drizzle which gave way to rain for 12 of the 14 hours. The ride home was pretty brutal. Most times we marvel at how fast it goes in comparison to going out but not this time. We were thankful we got home safe and pretty much collapsed into bed after unloading the car.
We do wish we had one more day (and for months we thought we did until a week or two before we left) so we'll definitely extend by a day next time. We were thankful for a somewhat uneventful time near Woodstock after the roller coaster of Stowe courtesy of Mother Nature. We needed the downtime and we both agree we'd stay there again which is almost unheard of for us. I can count on less than one hand how many places we were happy enough with to return. So that's how the holidays went for us!
How were your holidays this year?
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This chapter was just what we were looking for in a relaxing time and I am glad we got it.
ReplyDeleteI would love to track down the owner of the book you got and see what they're up to. They obviously have a great sense of humor!
In the end I had a great time and already look back on it with fondness for another adventure. Oh, and I want to be a glass blower in my next career for sure. They seemed so chill.
I'm so glad the end of your trip turned out so much better than the start of it. You got to go to great places and enjoy the fun activities you like, and that's pretty awesome. Another one in the books for sure!
ReplyDeleteOurs were quiet and peaceful, which was great. We didn't even open presents until the 26th. LOL Glad a new year is hear and 2022 is folded up nice and neat...well, except for the rooms that aren't. Ha!