This year we spent Christmas in New Mexico. If we’d had some way to know in advance about the extreme weather, closed airports, and chronic delays, we certainly wouldn’t have made this trip. But it’s a good thing we didn’t know because our plans were only slightly modified by the chaos. We were very lucky. On the way over we saw many cancelled flights on the departure boards, but our flights were largely on time.
We worried about Ellen before the trip, but it turned out to be fine. She slept during most of the flights, and was easy to entertain when she was awake. Plus we’ve learned to take longer lay-overs so we had ample time to run her around and wear her out before each flight.
We spent the first full day in Albuquerque, resting up and visiting with my brother Ben and his wife Heather. As usual we’d postponed quite a bit of shopping knowing that we’d be in the US, so we did a lot of shopping. (We became iPad owners, and almost immediately found our laptop to be unbearably heavy and cumbersome.)
Then we traveled up to Las Vegas (New Mexico), where it turned out that we’d missed an impressive storm. Apparently the wind had gotten up to 74mph (119kph). Luckily by the time we got there the roads were clear and the sun was out. So we hung out my mom and dad, and my brother Diego and his wife Connie (who live next door to my parents.)
I’ve been guilty of thinking that my home town never changes. This is probably because I didn’t notice any changes when I was growing up (or was just very disappointed at the rate of change.) But Vegas has changed. This is most evident on the Old Town Plaza, where galleries, tattoo parlors, and coffee shops attract tourists from all over the country, if not the world.
Probably the single best thing about being home is watching Ellen spend time with her New Mexico relatives. She had fun last time, but this time she had a blast. It’s a shame she won’t remember any of it, but I certainly don’t get the impression that my family will forget these visits.
But it’s great for me to see my family as well, and there’s no better time to see your family than at Christmas. This year we got to see my cousin Rachel and her husband Karrie, which doesn’t happen often because they can’t often make the trip at Christmas. We also saw my cousin Sarah and her husband Troy, whose daughter Cora is almost exactly Ellen’s age.
But it’s not all fun and games. Life is particularly hard on my maternal grandparents and their four daughters. My grandparents are still living in their home, but only because their daughters take turns staying with them and hire help to stay when they can’t be there. That’s bad enough, but dementia is setting in for both of them, so in addition to being ill and depressed, they’re also confused. I’m not sure I can think of a scarier way to spend your final years.
And then… it was time to go. We’d planned to return before New Years and have the weekend to relax and try to shake the jet-lag. So we drove back to Albuquerque for a day of shopping and another chance to see Ben and Heather.
But at our point of departure, our luck with the weather gave out. Our flight to Chicago was delayed and there was no way we’d make our connection. So we had to stay an extra day, but since we knew this in advance, we were able to spend that day in Albuquerque instead of spending the night in Chicago.
So as it turned out, we spend New Years in the air above the Atlantic instead of shipping champaign and watching fireworks from our apartment as we’d planned. That was disappointing, but compared to the thousands of travelers that got stranded in foreign airports for days — or had their trips cancelled altogether — our trip was problem-free.
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