My daisy lupin Christmas memory

I have many, many memories of Christmases past ~ but the one that is most special for me is a Christmas not long ago ~ Christmas of 2001.

The year I finished my radiation treatment. During that year as I 'did' my treatments, I had met many wonderful women online on a cancer support forum.

My gorgeous darling, sensitive husband gave me a 'reward' for being 'brave' ~ a trip to New York city to visit my bestest friend Gin. She and others helped me get through those weeks of treatment. So at the end of July we began our preparations for this huge 5 week holiday (the trip alone is daunting - I think a 14hr+ trip from Sydney to Los Angeles then from LA to NY - so many hours, on a plane)

Sept 11 dawned and as we all know - New York was attacked.

what to do? do we go or not? we had to make some pretty fast decisions in the days following - against the advice of many, we decided to continue on with our plans. And I am so glad we did!
Gin lives on Staten Is. Her husband is a NYPD detective. her parents were italian. She is a New York yankee fan. She is an all round nice person and she welcomed us into her home and heart.
Before we left Australia, Gin emailed me and asked me to make a list of what I wanted to do. my list went something like this:
to pay my respects at what was now known as Ground Zero ~ we arrived at the site and while we were there, a news show was being made and we were all asked where we came from, once we said Australia, the news crew came running over to film us ~ we were on the news that night ~ oh gawd, I looked a sight: my nose was red from the cold, I had a woollen beanie on and really looked like a homeless waif - ahh well such is fame!
to eat pastrami on rye in a traditional New York Deli ~ and we did and it was delish!
chestnuts from a street vendor ~ an aquired taste - not my kind
a ride in the carriage in Central Park ~ such fun - we were wrapped up under a blanket and off we went!

to have an 'affair to remember' by visiting the Empire State building ~ we got to the Empire state building and had to produce id. of course we had left all our passports back on Staten Is - Gin flashed her 'detective' badge and they let us in - thank heavens - it was sooo cold up the top, it was raining ice, but the view was amazing
I wanted to visit 34th street and we did and I danced to the Christmas music in Maceys! those New York people thought I was hilarious
I wanted a white Christmas - even though Gin and Ron assured me they had done the naked snow dance, it didn't snow on Christmas day - although at first I thought it had - you see, I woke early Christmas morning and looked out the window - seeing white! snow! I woke everyone up and made them look and then realized I was looking at the next doors drive which was covered in white pebbles - it was funny!
We visited the huge toy store in New York city, we travelled on the Staten Is. ferry, unfortunately we couldn't visit the Empire State building as it had been closed to the public, we went to see the famous Rockettes, we had New York hotdogs with the lot,

we had our photo taken with New York police

~ we met friends of Gins who had worked on the rescue after Sept 11, we visited people we didn't know and talked to them about life. We, strangers from Australia were welcomed with open arms into their homes.
We had a traditional Christmas eve italian dinner ~ we went to midnight mass ~ we had a traditional Christmas day with our friends.

Then we travelled for 3 weeks to Pennsylvania and Indiana to 'meet' some more online gal friends...then came back to New York to fly back to LA.

The day we were driving to the airport - it started to snow.

I cried all the way from New York to California - knowing that I would miss this gal with all my heart.
and that dear friends is a little peek into one of my Christmas memories.