.

It’s Christmas.

Consider it your virtual gift to me.

.

.

I’m going with strange. It’s how I roll…

The year was 2015 and it was my first Christmas without my mother. I’m an only child, my father died when I was 15. Losing my mother hit me hard and I was feeling unhinged. Alone. And not at all in the holiday spirit. Decorating the house and hosting my husband’s ungrateful family was more than I could bear…. so I went to a travel agency, told them how much I wanted to spend and asked them to find me something interesting within driving distance.

Which is how we ended up spending Christmas week in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania.

We generally like our accommodations out of the way and quiet… and brother, that’s just what we got.

.

.

Welcome to the Pocono Manor Resort. A massive, secluded, surrounded by mountains and rolling hills, giant stone edifice I won’t ever forget.

It was dark and overcast when we arrived. Mountain fog surrounded the grounds and the silence was eerie. No cars in the parking lot, one dim light by the front entrance.

.

.

And while the interior was fully lit and beautifully decorated…

.

.

It was as silent as a tomb.

.

.

A very large tomb.

Built on 3,000 acres in 1902 as a summer vacation residence for wealthy New Yorkers, families lived here for months with no reason to leave. Boasting an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, a full spa, riding stables, fly fishing pond, indoor and outdoor pools, multiple restaurants, game rooms, library, theater, and it’s very own post office with private zip code… it was a world unto itself.

And when we visited December of 2015?

We literally had the entire building to ourselves.

.

.

No, I’m not kidding. For the first 5 days of our week long stay it was just us … and every time I walked down this hall to our room? I expected to see the twins on tricycles because we were staying at the Poconos version of the Overlook Hotel.

.

.

Yes, there was staff.

Ghostly staff, because you hardly ever saw them.

.

.

We wandered room after room and never encountered a soul.

.

.

Every morning we had breakfast alone, in a room that probably seated 600.

Creepy?

You could say that.

.

.

We sat alone in the theater…

.

.

And watched It’s A Wonderful Life.

.

.

Hoping the lights would come back on when we were through.

.

.

Long, endless, empty hallways with only the sounds of our footsteps for company.

.

.

Ho! Ho! Holy Hell it was bizarre.

.

.

It was a place frozen in time, although it had just undergone a 5 million dollar renovation.

.

.

I never did manage to get a photo of the entire place…

.

.

You couldn’t really, it was too big.

.

.

But it was definitely a magical and quirky way to spend the holiday.

Sadly this amazing place caught fire and sustained substantial damage in 2019.

.

.

(not my pictures)

.

.

It’s been closed since then with various plans to rebuild.

.

.

Horror of all horrors? The latest developer to be interested is the Margaritaville Corporation who want to build a village of tacky housing.

.

.

They say they will “honor the memory” of the Manor but I don’t think plastic palm trees are going to cut it.

😰

Now it’s your turn.

Share a happy, funny or strange Christmas memory with me.

.