Martin Family Vacation 2023: MA to MD to GA

Helllloooooo!  We made it home from a wonderful vacation to Florida, and now we are back to reality, wondering why vacation days go by so fast?  It was a great trip, let's recap, shall we?

On December 23rd (Christmas Adam), we left home at 4 am and drove to Maryland to Phil's parents' house.  We stayed there for a night, ate a wonderful meal of beef stew and homemade breads (thanks Nana!) and went to bed relatively early for another long day of travel ahead of us.  We left from Maryland around 5 am on Christmas Eve and drove to Savannah, GA, arriving around 3 pm.  The portable DVD player came in very handy for the long drives and I'm so glad St. Nick left it under the tree.

Our hotel rooms were not ready yet, so we walked around the Christmas market and bought some treats:

Phil was a superstar doing all the driving

We checked into the hotel and had to take a photo in front of a Christmas tree AND palm trees...very exciting for us Northerners:

We all went to the hotel gym for a workout to shake off that sitting-in-the-car-for-too-long feeling:

Maggie even jumped into the freeeeezing outdoor pool after, her own personal polar plunge.

We ordered pizza to eat at the hotel before walking over to the Holiday Trolley Tour we had booked.  The tour was awesome, and it took us around to places we hadn't yet seen on foot.  We sang carols and all of the kids really got into it and rang their bells and sang loudly and had such a fun time.  I just love them so much.  We stopped at the Prohibition Museum for a mocktail (hot chocolate or hot cider or a holiday punch) and a chocolate praline candy and then could walk around the Christmas Market for awhile before getting back on the trolley.  

How cute was our driver?

Acting natural

Prescriptions for whiskey during prohibition

She's everywhere

Andrew said he was really feeling his mocktail ;)

The Georgia Queen

We like big, um, ornaments and we can not lie

And you will never believe who was able to take some time off on his busiest night of the year to pose for photos!!

He smelled a bit like beef and cheese ;)

In the morning, we all met and had a yummy feast of omelettes and pancakes that was included with our stay.  

We got our money's worth :)

Then we had the kids come to our room, where we had set up stockings for them.  It was Christmas morning after all!

The big guys loved their echo dots, but we saved the best part of the vacation as a surprise to tell the kids on Christmas morning.  Declan has been obsessed with dolphins since he could talk, so I wanted to catch his reaction in particular:

We drove over to the gorgeous Savannah Cathedral and went to Christmas Mass at 10:30 am, where it was standing room only (we got there early enough to get seats) and the Bishop of Savannah said a beautiful Mass with lovely Christmas music and it was just perfect.  I had worried that it would feel really weird to not be home for Christmas, and the days did sort of blur together with all of the travelling, but that Mass made it feel like a very special Christmas indeed.  

My whole world

After Mass, we chatted with the Bishop, who was so engaging and even gave Maggie a special blessing "Blessed are you amongst men!"  Then it was off to Orlando we drove on a rainy Christmas day...