Category Archives: Andy

The second day of our Holiday Stroll weekend began in colder and grayer form. Andy slept in, and I made my way to downtown to get the supplies for the following week’s Children’s Holiday gathering – another planned return to something we once did with some semblance of regularity, and which now felt strange and new. I shuffled along the Southwest Corridor Park and noticed that flowers and berries were still showing off. 

It recalled the Lenten roses I’d seen on our car ride home the night before – a row of them in ghostly bloom at this late date in December, somehow blooming on an evening when both Andy and I were too chilled to explore the city any further. On this day, the same chill was in the air, so I hurried along and finished all my shopping – both for the following week, and all the holiday shopping for friends and family. (Jaxon Layne was the last one I needed to find something for.) 

Returning home to find Andy ensconced on his end of the couch and finishing up his cup of coffee, I joined him for an early afternoon siesta – a favorite part of visiting Boston now. 

Dusk came quickly, and without wanting a formal or stuffy dinner scene we took a car to Chinatown and had another meal of comfort food. Miscalculating the timing, our early dinner plans ran into the matinee-ending crush of the nearby theater district, so traffic snarled and snagged, causing us to walk over to the Ritz-Carlton for a beat, where we found another fireplace that played a part on previous holiday strolls and visits.

One of those jewel-like moments that find their unplanned way into every holiday stroll, we paused there to get warm, then continued on through the chilly night, down Boylston and all the way to the Newbury. 

Formerly the Taj, this was where we spent our wedding weekend, and as such holds special significance. We are accustomed to seeing this spot filled with flowers, but the Christmas version was just as spectacular. Across the street, a battalion of geese stood sentry on the pond at the Boston Public Garden. Maybe for our wedding anniversary we will return for a night in one of the suites. 

For now, we can merely afford another night at the condo, which held its own holiday allure with this mantle of stockings (the ‘E’ is for Emi and the ‘N’ is for Noah who will be joining me next weekend). 

And while I missed Kira this time around, I might have had a more heartfelt stroll being accompanied by Andy. When he’s not in Boston, his presence is always felt – in the Public Garden, at our favorite restaurants, along the Southwest Corridor Park – and when he is in Boston, it’s even better. 

This is one of those scary transitional years that always feels like it’s going to wreak havoc with a Virgo’s desire for order and consistency, but teaches happy lessons in letting go and going with the flow. When Kira indicated she wasn’t yet ready to do a holiday stroll, I was disappointed but understood. It forced a change-up that’s been in the making for a few years. The last time we did an official stroll was in 2019, right before COVID hit, and nothing has been the same since. We squeaked out a time-traveling bit of holiday magic to make the Holiday Stroll of 2020, but in 2021 it fell apart completely. No stroll, no roll. And somehow, no drama. We’d all been too beaten down to care. 

2022 felt like it might be the return of something normal, the rekindling of something good, but after a few months, the year proved to be just another dud, so when Kira canceled this year’s planned stroll, I turned to Andy and asked him to join me and lift my spirits. Good guy that he is, he agreed to come along for his first holiday stroll, and save a Christmas weekend that might have been lost to sadness. 

If you look closely at the bottom center of the above photo, you will notice a gentleman making his way through the Southwest Corridor Park – that’s Andy, returning from dropping off the car in the garage. Out of my many years spent in Boston, one of the happiest sights is seeing Andy walking along this path. It was an auspicious beginning to a peaceful stroll. 

My first order of business was decorating the condo, so I lit a few festive candles that soon spread their spicy, warm scents of cinnamons and balsam and cloves and pine throughout the rooms. Andy pulled a stool over to his spot on the couch and set up his coffee, while some quasi-holiday-music played on the stereo from a favorite movie.

Curtains went up, the mantle was decked out, garlands were lit, and pillows were switched out for the Christmas season. A welcome sense of coziness swelled just as the temperature went down and the day dimmed. My only real strolling plan was a walk through the Seaport Holiday Market – it would be my first time visiting it, so Andy and I would experience another first together, like we did so many years ago, and so many years since. 

The market was cute and quaint, and more extensive than we expected – with local artisans offering their goods. Walking but we hurried through it because it was also much colder than we had anticipated. 

I’d made reservations at The Smoke Shop for some warm comfort food – another first that turned out to be another happy moment. After any sort of walking expedition, especially in Boston, one works up an appetite, so I ordered the ‘Pit Crew’ with two meats and two sides and all was well with the world. Andy started with a cozy little cocktail called ‘Saving Daylight’ which consisted of bourbon, honey, lemon and a touch of cinnamon, while I opted for a tall glass of ginger ale. It was a very good meal, and we finished it off with some egg nog butter cake. 

The walk across one of the bridges bringing us back from the Seaport section was brutal – windy and cold and biting – so we paused by a fireplace at the Intercontinental Hotel before getting an Uber home. 

The fading remnants of a recently-full moon hung low in the sky, sparkling on the water and lending an aspect of holiday magic to the end of the evening. We returned to the cozy condo scene, and after a hot shower I slipped into the bed, where Andy joined me for the showing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ – a Holiday Stroll tradition that somehow was still intact.