Snow White(ley) and the One Dwarf: Christmas Adventures

I think it must be fate or some other such abstract concept that is behind the fact that the last book I read with my honors kiddos was "Of Mice and Men."

Because truly, "The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry . . ." and ours most certainly did for Christmas this year.

The plan was genius as most plans go. P's whole fam would meet back home. His youngest brother and his wife and P and I would say we wouldn't be able to find tickets and then we would all surprise P's mom and dad on Christmas night. Home for Christmas. We'd spend Christmas morning with my family, run to the airport and make it that night to North Carolina. We would be there Sunday, Monday, and leave 5 am Tuesday, getting home just in time for P to finish packing for his work trip to India.

And then came the snow . . . which apparently the South can't handle very well. (In their defense, they don't see a ton of it often.)

Thirty minutes before we left for the airport we got the first call. Delta had canceled our flight and rebooked us for Sunday night. This didn't work very well as we would then be able to spend less than 24 hours with his family. We tried American. Awesome. Perfect. We couldn't get a flight to the airport near P's house like on Delta, but we would be able to get a flight to an airport 2 hours away and then drive down. So worth it. We called the car rental agency and switched our reservation. We'd get to P's home around 1:30 a.m., but we'd still get to surprise his mom and dad.

So--Plan B. It was all working until Chicago. We had a layover at O'Hare. The plane was on schedule. And then the weather gave us another blow. Because of the ice and snow the plane had to be de-iced. If we could have left right away, it all would have been perfect. But, since we were a very small plane we were farther down the queue. We started to get nervous. The car rental agency closed at midnight. If we didn't get there by then, we'd be stranded 2 hours from home with nowhere to go. P started calling all of his friends in North Carolina to see if we could find a couch to crash on. No answers. Maybe no one was left in town for Christmas.

In the end it didn't matter. An hour after we boarded, the de-icer was finally ready for us. So, we were still sitting on the tarmac when the news came. Because of the snow, the governor of North Carolina had declared a state of emergency, that meant we couldn't leave.

I waited for our luggage while P went to try to rebook us. They couldn't get us tickets for the next morning (the whole state of emergency thing), but if we waited in Chicago, maybe that evening or the next day.

We had no problem spending the day in the airport, but the real problem was also making sure we could get back in time for P to get to India. He had a complicated itinerary and if he missed any flight then he might not be able to make it to Asia period.

We decided to head home. There were no flights back to home that night, we'd have to stay in Chicago. P and I were both so sad. Each time something looked like it wouldn't happen, we found a way to get around it and then we finally just hit a wall. His whole family was going to come together. He had talked to his mom several times so that she'd be sure to be really, really surprised, and his brothers had set up the perfect scenario to reveal that the whole family had actually made it home for Christmas. We didn't want to give up, but we just couldn't be sure that the weather wouldn't strand us in North Carolina--or that we'd ever end up able to make it to his family.

We finally made it to the hotel around midnight. After 12 hours of travel, we managed a 40 minute flight to Chicago. So, the best laid plans . . .

Because I am that annoying I tried to convince P of the amazing Christmas adventure we'd had. We had some fun trying to out maneuver the storm. We got to eat airport food. Because of P's status at Sheraton we managed a great deal for an amazing room. And, we have a great story to tell of our first Christmas together.

So, although I feel bad that we missed his family, I'm determined to look on the bright side. Two words: Christmas adventure. (Key word being adventure.)

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and also that they have a happy New Year!

Here's some pictures of our Christmas Eve celebrations . . .