January 8, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,

The subtitle of this piece might be "home is an exotic location." You know Vermont, our beautiful state, is visited by millions of tourist each year. John and I went to Vermont for Christmas. It was fabulous and we loved many things. I loved driving a car. No car in Cairo, so it felt great to slide behind the wheel of a rental. We’d arrived in NYC in a snowstorm and waited hours for a delayed Burlington flight. Once on the plane we sat an hour, and then another for de-icing, finally taking off at 2 AM. Liz had called the car rental guy at Burlington airport and he promised to wait. That sweetheart man handed over car keys at 3:30 AM and we drove through a silent nighttime landscape deep in new snow, stars just appearing after the storm.

We drove to Shelburne where Jake and Liz each live in one of the tiny apartments in our pink house. Kissing goodnight in the parking area, I snuggled into bed with Liz while John slid into bed with Jake. How many times when they were little did they insinuate themselves into our bed? OK, kids, move over, Mom and Dad need to crash and sleep after a long journey.

John's sister, Judy, had arranged for us to stay in the house of a friend who'd gone off to warmer climes for the winter. She'd put up a Christmas tree in this perfect little gingerbread house in a forest clearing south of Shelburne. The wood box was full. The house was outfitted with the newest Ina Garten cookbook, best lemon squeezer, and a sensational
garlic press. The bed was comfee and the snow was eighteen inches deep. Having such a nifty house allowed u s to host parties. We had a Middle Eastern dinner (moussaka with all the fixi n’s) for Christmas Eve. This party has a thirty-year tradition. Three couples and our five children and, for the first time in five years, everyone made it!


Our kids stayed overnight and next morning opened presents and pulled gifts from stockings while we peeled tangerines and nibbled chocolates. It seemed almost like Christmas twenty years ago in our old farmhouse in Ferrisburgh.

In Vermont we had the pleasure of bumping into old friends and acquaintances in the grocery store, in the bookshop. We dropped in on friends, went out for dinner, shoveled snow, threw snowballs, and cross-country skied. We had the profound pleasure of being active, outdoors in the snow and cold.

Driving - I love Vermont's interstate highway, Route 89, that traverses the state from northwest to southeast. Grabbing bagels and coffee to go, John and I hopped on the interstate heading south from Burlington, a drive we've made hundreds of times to ski races and track meets and to my family in Massachusetts. I love my interstate an d its beautiful curves: the sweeping turn with a vista of Mount Mansfield just north of Richmond, the giant S-curve between Sharon and Randolph, and the long gentle arc along the Connecticut River north of Brattleboro. I love the snowy mountains. I loved driving.

My four siblings, spouses, assorted children, friends, and my parents packed my sister Patrice's house for a weekend-after-Christmas party. It was a Mackey feast of over the top food and drink, lots of noise. Partying carried on for three-ish days before families headed home to Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and us to Vermont. It was another great drive north on our interstate.

The last few days in Vermont whizzed by – a couple more parties in the gingerbread house, time with Liz and Jake and his girlfriend Helen. And then it was over. Bags packed. House cleaned. Rental car returned at the airport. Boarding passes. A long layover at JFK followed by an overnight flight to Cairo. We stepped out into the Egyptian sunshine. It did, indeed, seem like we'd visited an exotic land of snow and cold. What a great place to call home!

Love,
Beth and John

Text by Beth; photos by John