SKI TRIPS

We are now at the age where we are empty nesters. Our youngest child left for college this year. I am the youngest in my family, so each of my sisters are at the same stage in life. This will be our first holiday season without parents. Our father passed away several years ago, and our mom died this summer. We have talked about starting a new tradition for the holiday season. We each like to spend time with each other’s families keeping in touch with nieces and nephews and letting the cousins have time together. This year we talked about waiting until New Years weekend to do a family gathering. My husband suggested going skiing together. My children love ski trips and so do several of their cousins. My sisters usually plan ski trips during the winter months, but not over the holiday season.

I asked my sisters if they would be willing to plan their ski trips together with us and to go close to the holidays. We all agreed that this may be fun. We take both down hill and cross country ski trips, but one of my sister’s only cross country ski. We knew about a resort that offers both that some friends of ours had bought several years ago. We called them and asked if they could accommodate our large group. All together there would be twenty of us. The couple explained that we were like an answer to a prayer. They had renovated the main lodge and did not think it would be ready for guests until the middle of January. All of their advertisements stated that they would reopen at that time. The project was completed in advance, but people had made alternative arrangements for the holiday weekend. They agreed to let us have the entire lodge for our family. This included sixteen bedrooms, the dining room, game room and bar area. They were planning on being empty so they reduced the price, if we agreed to purchase our meals in addition to the lodging. Usually on our ski trips we make our own meals because of the expense; but the price they were quoting us was very inexpensive.

My sisters and their husbands agreed that this was a great price and we booked the lodge. We arrived on a Friday evening and we were all planning to stay until Sunday late afternoon. The lodge was beautifully decorated for the holidays and the renovation was gorgeous. We skied, ate drank and visited. We have decided that our future ski trips will be family events.