Weird and Wacky Holiday

Right now we had planned and hoped to be in Snowmass, Colorado with David's parents, and that my parents would be on their way to join us in the snowy Rocky Mountains to ski and celebrate Christmas together. David is an only child, and it's clearly his parents' turn to have us with them over the holidays. Last year my parents were with us in France at our new home there.

However, due to days of heavy fog in London and the huge incapacitating blizzard in Denver, Colorado, my whole family is now in Virginia at my parents' house, and David's parents are all on their own in Snowmass, with six fewer house guests and Christmas celebrants than expected. All the gifts had been sent out there, so we have next to none here with us, except we did have a few that are for David's parents. So last night, realizing this mountain holiday was not going to happen this year, due to our cancelled flights and the thousands of other stranded passengers muddling up the Denver airport, we rapidly bundled up some gifts here to mail UPS out to Colorado, and David's mom had to open all the packages out there to sort out what was for them (not even wrapped) and what needed to be mailed back out here. The packages will cross in the mail to say hello to each other, and end up with the correct people around the 29th of December.

I have been very sad for David's parents. I cried over the phone with his mom as I had 10 minutes personally to make the decision not to get on the first of three plane flights on my own with the kids that would likely have gotten the three of us stuck in Charlotte or Denver without David or anyone else. I couldn't confer with David, as he was on his way from London to Aspen via Chicago, and he already knew his last flight was likewise cancelled. In the end, the kids and I stayed at my mom's, and David was rerouted to join us here.

We are very blessed to have a cushy, loving, gourmet place to stay here at my mom's, with family and a decorated Christmas tree - it wasn't our plan, and we won't be with David's parents as we wished, and we won't have the gifts available on Christmas Day, but we're safe, we're humbled, we're thankful for all the years in the past that this sort of thing has actually worked. And my husband is here, after a 44-hour debacle. I know we will have a lovely time. Lord, bless and help and encourage and grant peace, hope, and joy to David's parents with this huge change of plans.