In hindsight, I should have anticipated that traveling to Vermont at Christmastime would be a lot of trouble. Not only might snow be a factor, but airports and flights would be jam-packed. Still, we planned to leave San Francisco, connecting through Newark, for Burlington, Vermont on Sunday, December 21; should any troubles arise, Christmas Eve would remain three days away. Plenty of time, right?
Nerves getting the best of me, I called Continental Airlines about eight hours before our flight; since a Continental plane had just skidded off of a runway in Denver, my sensitivities were heightened. Assured that they anticipated no delays, I went to sleep, preparing for a 4:30 a.m. wake up. Kids dressed and ready to go out the door, I suggested that my husband (the Guv) do one last check on the flight status before we leave home.
Our flight, the first Newark-bound flight out of San Francisco that day, was cancelled.
Our angelic children waited patiently as the Guv, the highest level of frequent flier on Continental, called their priority line. We were offered a rescheduled flight that would get us to Vermont at midnight on Christmas Eve – three, almost four, very long days later. Stand-by wasn’t even an option; our flight was cancelled due to “weather,” we were told (though the worst of the New England storm had passed, puzzling us). Nevertheless, a lot of passengers had been stranded in the day before us; we’d simply have to wait, we were told.
“What if that flight gets cancelled? Didn’t you tell Santa that we’ll be in Vermont? And what if we’re delayed and in the air when Santa wants to come? OUR TREE ISN’T EVEN UP YET!” our eight year-old daughter, who still believes in Santa, began to panic.
A few hours later, the Guv and I agreed that three-four days wasn’t going to work. We’d rather be stuck in our California home for Christmas and leave yet later than be stuck in the air for the holiday. I had told the Guv that I really wanted a white Christmas in Vermont, though, and he was hell-bent on making that happen. Using his thickest charm, he called the priority line again.
Suddenly, we were on a plane on the 23rd, first class, to Houston. We could sleep for about six hours at an in-airport Marriott before catching an early flight to Newark on Christmas Eve. My father-in-law would pick us up at noon, drive us to Hartford, Connecticut (the nearest place from which we could pick up a one-way rental car), and we’d be in Vermont by dinnertime on Christmas Eve, in plenty of time for putting up the tree in advance of Santa’s highly-anticipated arrival.
We’ll forget about the disparaging looks we got boarding our first-class flight to Houston with kids in tow nearly three hours late; the little angels went straight to sleep as instructed. When we landed at 2:30 a.m., we walked over a quarter of a mile to the “in-airport” hotel, as the tram was shut down for the night. Three hours of sleep later, the kids still had huge smiles pasted on their faces (and cowboy hats on their heads, accessories they had brought with them out of excitement over visiting Texas) as we sauntered back for our on-time flight to Newark, which was also seamless. My father-in-law was there, and nearly seven -- SEVEN! – hours later, thanks to some through horrific freezing rain, we picked up our rental car in Hartford at 7 pm, after stopping at a grocery store just before it closed for the night to pick up supplies for a hasty, out-of-the-box Christmas Eve dinner…
Three hours later, just past 10 pm, we pulled into our driveway in Vermont. We slapped up the artificial tree that we bought years ago for a Christmas in July party. A very tired, but still smiling, Petunia, slapped on about ten ornaments as her dad wrapped some lights around. I played Santa as Dad put the kids to bed. We all woke up late (and still exhausted) on Christmas Day with a Charlie Brown tree, but no one cared. Our vista was a forest of gorgeous white snow, Santa had come, and we were in for the day…
… until I realized that no grocery stores were open on Christmas Day, and we had almost no food in the house.
Twitter to the rescue! Several non-Christian friends were tweeting about getting Asian food take-out for dinner, and the Guv remembered that there was a Japanese steakhouse in a nearby town. A new family tradition, the Japanese Steakhouse Hibachi Christmas Day Dinner, was born.
The drama of our travels didn’t end there, but the memory is blurred by the sheer joy I felt watching my two kids, ages 3 and 8, ski together for the first time. My lungs are full of fresh Green Mountain air, and my heart is full of happiness, as the Guv found a way to get us to our white Christmas – and, in the end, to one of our best family vacations ever. I’m writing this post from the first class section of Continental, my favorite airline, on our way home. The kids are still being angels, and I hope it lasts beyond our touchdown. We have some thinking to do about next year… while I loved our white Christmas, and while we swore to the kids we’d always have Christmas in our Vermont home, I’m thinking that a white sand beach might serve as a good white Christmas substitute. California-Hawaii flights aren’t often cancelled for weather, and I wouldn’t have to pack as many bulky things. Santa can find us on the beach… right?
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