A Normalish Christmas

Posting about last Christmas in August…better late than never? I’ve had this saved in my drafts and realized I never posted it. Anyways, this past Christmas wasn’t really fully “normal” whatever that means these days. But it had just enough normal to soothe me after Christmas 2020, which for most of us, was anything but normal and really quite sad.

My mom miraculously was able to visit over Christmas and honestly, we could not have planned the timing for her visit better if we tried. She arrived on the exact day that Christmas markets, hotels, restaurants, and cultural institutions were reopening after another several weeks-long lockdown. She made it here and back Covid-free which is something I don’t take for granted for one second particularly with the current variant raging around the world.

I haven’t seen anyone from my family for Christmas since 2018. While it was sad not see my entire family, having Mom here with us physically for Christmas was a tender balm after an extremely challenging year. I kept saying “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

Because of travel restrictions and an extremely fluid situation across Europe, we opted to stay around Vienna throughout her trip. It was great fun to return to some of the places we’d been with her in August 2021 now in a totally different season.

While Mom was here and up until lockdown, we toured as many Christmas markets as possible, having missed them last year due to lockdown. We sampled hot punsch and festive snacks of all kinds of course.

We enjoyed cocktails indoors and out and meals of all kinds – Austrian, Italian, Israeli, and plenty of fun meals at home.

We returned to RAX mountain this winter to snowshoe – Mom handled it like a pro.

We watched a friends dog for ten days and enjoyed the excuse/motivation for long walks and hikes.

Of course, we visited several museums. A return visit to the Art History Museum to see the Titian exhibit (stunning), the MAK (applied arts), and the Leopold Museum (varied collection).