Not Another Christmas Turkey

I sat there on Thanksgiving, completely frustrated and slightly irritated. I didn’t want turkey. I had been over turkey on the holidays since around 1995 when my mom found this mutant turkey that fed an army and still sat sliced and frozen in the freezer through May the next year. I didn’t want to see another holiday meal while we sat and watched movies. I wanted to be somewhere warm and somewhere I could find some peace and focus.

Tossing it out in to the universe, I decided not to worry how it would happen, but I wanted to be somewhere else for Christmas- and my birthday. It did not have to be anything huge. Just different. And yes, I have kids, but my sanity was quickly unraveling.

Then I get a call from Hilda, saying practically the same thing that I was thinking and feeling. Her kids would be with their dad for the holiday and she was also craving a change of scenery. So we decided to road trip to Savannah.

We put together a loose itinerary, but then decided to just go with the flow. That was the point of the trip. To do something we didn’t normally do. We welcomed the 80 degree weather and documented our entire trip.

12/24- We wake up bright and early. Hungry. Ready to hit the streets. We find a small bakery to start our day. I had a grilled cheese sandwich sent from heaven. We take a minute to take some pics that come out way better than we thought they would. Lunch starts at a rooftop bar where the scenery is pretty, but the food isn’t appealing, so we go searching elsewhere. The day is beautiful, but it is still the holiday weekend and things close up pretty early. We get lost trying to find the car, but the photo ops along the way back were priceless.

Okay, so we are in love with the city. eating ourselves into oblivion. But with all of the walking, we figure that balances that out. We finally make it back to where we are staying and chill before falling asleep.

12/25- The one thing we notice is that Savannah does not have a ton of Christmas or holiday decorations. Here in ATL, you can drive down the street and the lamp posts are decorated with lights. It didn’t feel like Christmas in Savannah, but that was okay. We venture out around 11 am, hoping something was open. Not much was, at least until the afternoon. So we go to a Greek cafe, order coffee, which was not all that great, and we people watch and talk goals and dreams until we can eat.

We find a sports bar that opens at 1 pm and go to eat. The place is packed before we know it. More people than you think are not at home eating Christmas dinner. Instead, people packed the place to sit and watch football- and not eat turkey.  A bunch of people spending the holiday the way that they wanted to spend the holiday.

We go back to the apartment (we are staying with Hilda’s cousin) and we sleep all afternoon, or like myself, read the internet all day. We finally make it out the house around 9pm to go to Hilda’s aunt’s house and grab a plate of dinner.

12/26- My birthday. None of the bakeries were open. That’s what happens in a city with a lot of Mom and Pop businesses. It’s fine. We go to tour a historic house that we choose and before we end up hangry (yes, hangry) we find a spot to eat lunch before we need to hit the road back to ATL.

Of course I got the side eye, people questioned where my mind was and what I was doing being somewhere else (away from my kids and the turkey on the dinner table) on the holiday. That trip was small, but meaningful. Refreshed, refocused, when I came home, I felt like a new person. You have to be whole if you are going to be anything to anyone else. You have to live your life the way that works best for you. On top of that, it gave people in my life, and myself, a reminder of who the old me was and a notice that I’m back.

~Tamara

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