This year, my parents, sister, and I spent Christmas with Sue's family in New Orleans. It was three days of nonstop eating and giftgiving with family I hadn't seen in two years.
We flew down early on Christmas Eve. I don't remember the last time I flew. It must have been after my knee surgery but before September 11, 2001. I know the implant set off the metal detector, but I don't remember having to stand in a tiny glass-walled room while a chatty security guard patted me down. Dad had to mail his chrome cigarette lighter to himself because Mr. Homeland Security said, "he could empty the liquid somehow." Dad wisely ignored the fact that butane is a gas at room temperature and pressure.
I had a window seat and clear skies for almost the entire trip. The snow, still fresh from two days before, put the roads, rivers, and forests in stark contrast to the surrounding farmland. I could clearly see the highway corridors studded with exit ramp bowties stretching to the horizon. Small towns lay in jagged, organic splashes across the landscape. The snow diminished as we traveled further south, disappearing completely when we emerged from a cloud bank over southern Tennessee. I could have watched the scenery all day long. I told Erica, who sat next to me, "I wish the plane had a glass floor." She disagreed.
We transferred planes in Atlanta. I napped for most of the second leg of the trip but woke for the descent into New Orleans. I don't know why people joke about California falling into the ocean when it was obvious from the plane that New Orleans, perched on a waterlogged strip of land between Lake Pontchartrain and swampy Mississippi delta, already is.
The four of us stayed with my Aunt Donna and Uncle Geoff in the tightly packed checkerboard suburbs surrounding the city. We had the first of three gift exchanges at their house that evening. A few family members were unable to make it because the bridges connecting New Orleans to the rest of the country had frozen in a rare cold snap. Ironically, we had left subfreezing Indiana for freezing Louisiana. The possibility of snow dominated both the conversation and local news channels.
We spent Christmas Day at my grandparents' with the rest of the extended family. There was quite a crowd despite freezing rain and bridges. Food and drink abounded. After another gift exchange, someone glanced out the window and exclaimed, "It's snowing!" For the first time in 50 years, New Orleans had a white Christmas. The wet flakes accumulated on car windshields and eventually the ground. I could hear laughter all down the street as children who had never seen snow in their lives threw snowballs at each other.
All of us slept in the next day. We had a leisurely brunch and then set out to visit Aunt Mary's family in Baton Rouge. The rest of New Orleans felt the need to travel that day, too, so we took the back roads to avoid the traffic. We followed one winding two-lane highway for about an hour and a half, passing rundown plantations, sugar cane fields, and towering industrial installations that all fed off of the nearby Mississippi river.
We arrived at Aunt Mary's house to find another dose of food and gifts. We ate; we opened. Sue and her sisters gathered around the kitchen table to catch up. The males, meanwhile, watched football in the living room. I spent a good deal of the afternoon reinstalling Windows on my cousin's virus-infested laptop. The poor thing could barely run.
That was the last day of our whirlwind visit to Louisiana. We returned to Indiana the next day after another two-leg plane ride.
I hope your holiday contained just as much food and family as mine. Merry Christmas.