Christmas this year was going to be spent working on the house, but I decided, somewhat last minute, to fly to Albuquerque to surprise Jeralyn at her sister's house.
There were a couple of issues that slowed me down. First off, I don't have very many vacation days left and I am hoping to take a long biking trip this summer with some friends. Secondly, Jeralyn wasn't sure whether or not she was going to go to her sister's house due to the cost of the flights steadily rising. I had to gently nudge her to buy her ticket without being too obvious about my intentions if the surprise was going to work.
She bought her ticket 5 days before her flight. I did the same. I had already been coordinating with her sister on how to get to the house and methods of surprising Jeralyn. Once tickets were purchased, I had to figure out a good reason as to why my phone would be off for the 20 or so hours it would take to get from the UK to New Mexico. In the end, I went with something along the lines of how I was going to bring my sleeping bag and get in my car and drive west in search of a white Christmas (there ended up being no snow in the UK, that I know of). I then had to mention how both Wales and the Lake District can have shoddy cell phone reception, thereby buying myself an excuse if she tried calling while I was in flight.
In the end, she figured me out before I got there. She could tell I was speaking around something and then connected the dots on the timeline and lack of phone reception. She asked her sister directly if I was planning on surprising her for Christmas and her sister sold me out instantly. Not only did she sell me out, but she was trying to get Jeralyn to work with her on a counter surprise (as Jeralyn pointed out, her sister really just wanted someone to be surprised).
When all was said and done, Jeralyn met me just outside of security at the Albuquerque airport. I was actually on the phone with her sister when I saw Jeralyn (her sister gave me no indication of selling me out), so I was a little confused at first as to why she was there.
It ended up working out well. She was happy to see me (despite it not being a surprise) and things were already fairly delayed due to a snowstorm. Due to delayed flights and closed roads, we didn't get to her sister's house until after 1:00am. It wasn't until after the fact we learned that Jeralyn was delayed in Atlanta and was supposed to be on the same flight as me to Albuquerque! We could have been hanging out in the airport for 4 hours and then on the 3 hour flight to Albuquerque together. Unfortunately, I didn't send my itinerary to her sister, just my arrival times, and Jeralyn talked to the customer service desk and got back on her original earlier flight.
As for Christmas in New Mexico, it was a lot of fun. Lots of talking, eating, and hanging out in scrubs. I got to meet a small portion of her large family. On a side note, my eyes were completely bloodshot the entire time and looking at photos from that day and a half make my eyes hurt. I didn't take too many pictures, but I did manage to snap a couple.
On the trip back, which was Christmas day, the flight back to England was only about 1/3 full. I ended up getting to take a middle row of 3 seats and lay down. I slept almost the entire flight, from the time the seat belt sign went off after take off until the seat-backs up announcement was made before landing.
New Year's was low key, but good. I went to some friends' house for a small get together. We made sushi and hung out while waiting for Big Ben to be lit up with fireworks at the stroke of midnight.
And now it is 2012. I think there are a couple of predictions for the end of the world this year, but, despite those, I think this is going to be a great year.
