This past weekend, was the time we usually decorate the house and put up the Christmas tree. I favor a Scotch Pine yet have had to settle on more than one occasion with a Noble Fir. I prefer tinsel, too, but my family cringes at that painstaking effort—one strand of tinsel perfectly hung with care. They never balk at the pile high of presents under the tree, though.
After my dad died, I tried to keep our Christmas traditions alive, but my mom didn’t have the heart for it anymore. So our family Christmas got outsourced. It became other family members’ responsibility. And when I moved away for college, Christmas vacation became just that, a time for a vacation. There was Santa Fe, Telluride, Whistler, Marrakesh, Costa del Sol, Key West, Kingston…Akron. The absence of Christmas traditions loomed large in my life until the mid-90s when my daughter arrived on the scene. Then I went full-bore and reintroduced all the great memories I grew up with happily.
We’ve had some wonderful Christmases, as I am sure you have and do, too. They are fun, memorable times, especially with Lil ‘ones running about. The Chalmers Family always held a family, friends, and neighbors open house on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. An early evening party—that would inevitably go until the early morning with a little too much Christmas cheer—at our deck the halls house. Everyone we knew was invited for cookies, pies, coffee, spiked eggnog, and other serious adult beverages.
Anyway, none of that is happening this year. The kids are older now, and we’re just not participating in the commercial madness. I don’t need any ties, aftershave, or socks. So what did the Chalmers Family Holiday Memo say: we all have what we need and most of what we want, too. And most of us agree.
Sure, we’ll still get together to argue and have a retro triple—cheese, meat and chocolate—fondue along with a plethora of the wife’s famous Christmas cookies: cardamon, rumballs, biscotti, raspberry coconut squares, pistachio-cranberry shortbread, caramel fudge brownies, madeleines, sable lemon jam cookies, and cinnamon-chocolate rugelach. And, yes, I am often asked: Bill, how do you keep your slim girlish figure! But no decorations or presents this year. We won’t even be home, mainly traveling here and there.
A few years ago, I used to write several year-end set pieces for Huffington Post, mostly travel-related. Yeah, it was all about branding for a few years. But it was fun…for a while. From the mundane, I’d review the 101 Best Travel Websites™; put together a cheeky spin on a Santa Naughty/Nice List—a play on the Dickens cliché, the best of times and the worst of times for the travel industry; and compile my personal Christmas Travel Wish List for the coming year.
Then for the new year, I would write four pieces: about Travel Trends; my New Year Travel Resolutions; an annual realpolitik GO/noGO list; and my personal favorite, an outrageous collection of Eight Epic Travel Adventures for jaded travelers to take in the New Year—which, interestingly enough, always seemed to include The Global Scavenger Hunt™. Ho-ho-ho…
This last piece, the eight epic adventures one, always included a mind-altering substances undertaking. Ill-advised adventures that may or may not have been personally researched by me on one of my numerous travel research trips (aka hall passes). So, in the spirit of giving (Kids, please close your eyes!), here are a few of those highlights if you need a good Christmas Party to attend—Gawd, I miss the politically incorrect Christmas parties of yesteryear!—complete with some rather exotic, unique types of cheer added in:
● For 2020, I suggested: With age comes experience, and over the years, we have suggested how to get higher highs: For this year’s vibe adventure, forget BC Bud, Emerald Triangle Kush and Colorado Wedding Cake; take a Jamaican Ganja tour. Turned up bright, the tour will take you and other like-minded bud-enthusiast friends to Rastafariland. Highlights included: Nine Mile, the boyhood home and final resting place of reggae superstar Bob Marley; Ocho Rios to relax and hike nature au natural; along with several plantations…aka ganja farms. Pick-up is around noon, munchies and rum included, but the return hotel drop-off time is vague.
● For 2019, I suggested: For culinary daredevils visiting South America, while you are in the geographic neighborhood, why not take in the wild-west of food: a pop-up jungle-to-table extravaganza in the Bolivian Amazon basin along the Beni River. On special occasions—like when you arrive—local “back to nature” chefs converge to prepare exotic semi-illegal outside-the-village dishes like: crocodile fillets in a coca leaf broth, grilled giant tapir meat served with a cocktail of fermented kecho fruit and cacao beans with a spicy chili pepper twist, paiche (a really big fish—a carp really) served with figs and spicy-sweet beetle larvae. They might also conjure up a purplish fungus—that may or may not have hallucinogenic effects, along with steamed giant river turtles. Caiman sushi, anyone?
● For 2018, I suggested: This year, it is all about achieving personal clarity and life-changing awareness. Naturally, we are talking about Peruvian ayahuasca. More than just Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and the Andes, Peru is also home to shamans and sacred plant ceremonies with ayahuasca (aka yagé). A strange brew, serving as the spiritual gateway drug of choice. Head to the jungle village of Iquitos for a DIY session or book a space at a reputable higher consciousness retreat—where you can check in, but you can never leave…. It’s better than Burning Man—and a lot cheaper too.
● For 2016, I suggested: Over the years, I have suggested Vegas’s Double Down Saloon and Route 36 pop-up cocaine bar in Bolivia. Both are high on anybody’s get-loaded list. Well, 2015 seemed to be the year of the heroin epidemic, so I suggest a stupid adventure in the New Year—visiting a third-world opium den. Yep, you can still find cheap high-quality China white and chase the dragon while laying your head on sweaty pillows in dungy guest houses vaping chandu (opium) in Van Ving, Laos. Complete with Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” blaring in the background. Just ask any tuk-tuk driver. Note: Foreigners will probably be jailed for extortion purposes, but isn’t that what adventure is all about?
● For 2015, I suggested: Not your neighborhood pub: Like to burn the candle at both ends? Okay, last year, I introduced folks to a real Vegas dive bar. And fortunately, this year we have a bar not suitable for DEA agents or addictive personality-types. Head to La Paz, Bolivia (bring your own oxygen), and keep asking taxi drivers until one takes you to Route 36, an ever-changing locations pop-up bar infamous for being the world's only cocaine lounge. Yep, a wholly illegal Bolivian marching powder and nose candy bar where you don’t have to hide in the bathroom to indulge—mirrors and straws are provided! But be forewarned: a) it is illegal (wink/nod, the Bolivian president is a coca farmer!); and b) you will have to endure the endless babble of fellow international tourists well into the morning.
● For 2014, I suggested: Don't tell your doctor or significant other! But head over to Las Vegas' infamous DoubleDown Saloon on a Toothless Tuesday and spend 24 hours comprehending your dubious insights into human nature and our cruel reality at this always-open shrine to the cult of intoxication. It’s a time you will always remember. Maybe? Puke insurance is a must! And remember the slogan: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...
● And, for 2023? Well, I suggest getting your Covid-19 booster shots and traveling more. We will be. And who knows, maybe, just maybe, you’ll meet The World's Most Interesting Person.
Merry Christmas and cheers everyone…whatever cheer you want!
Thanks for the privilege of your time, it is the most precious thing we have, and I appreciate it. Be well.
William D. Chalmers © 2022 GreatEscape Adventures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.