I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Have a good one- stay safe!

Thanks! Same to you Grant.

Thanks! I was beginning to think there was a Grinch in the house!

Well, over 100 people viewed this post but only one was able to reply with a Merry Christmas! I find that a little disturbing.

Grant,

If you said: "Merry Christmas and my roast just burnt, what can I do?" You would have 100 responses.

Take comfort people read your tidings. If you thought all should respond, then please look at the stats of many posts on this board. If people can add to the content, then they respond. Otherwise they read and move on, which is also an appropriate response.

Merry Christmas!

Regards,

Well, here's an invitation for one such as I to impart a moral lesson on merry Christmases, and why we must keep them and never invite strangers to bitch about them.

Our (Mrs. JiLS's and mine) Christmas, as always, was in Syracuse, New York, her home town and where her family still calls home. And what fun was had! To set the scene: Sunday, December 23. Our flight is to leave at 3:58 p.m. from O'Hare. We are there two hours in advance, just to be safe. Smiling like two baboons with a brand new pot full of bacon grease. And then, the usual airline nickel and dime crap begins; no way they'll just tell you to go the f*** home; no, it's 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there, and before you know it, 5 hours pass. Eventually, a little before 9:00 p.m., United Airlines finally finds a plane and a sober pilot, and we're good to go. Hello, Syracuse! Merry Christmas, you old Savings and Loan! Merry X-Mas, everybody!

After about 40 minutes of d***ing (see, "dicking") around with the stairs (that's right, stairs; this is a flight to Syracuse, New York; they don't waste the "sky bridges" on those), we are up, up and away. Fifteen minutes into the wild black yonder, and our captain announces we're heading back to O'Hare, and yes, for those who are keeping score, it technically IS an "emergency landing," but don't get upset [call a lawyer]. Despite all the fire engines you are going to see down there. And, indeed, they shut down all the runways at O'Hare so that our little regional jet could skid down unimpeded with its ice-laden wings (that was the emergency; the defrosters were on the fritz, although this was apparently only discovered AFTER we were 20,000 feet in the air). 10:02 p.m., and we're on the ground. 10:40, and they finally figure out this plane ain't going nowhere tonight, and they cancel the flight and tell us to get the hell off. Fine, United. Just fine.

A long, long El ride back to Logan Square. A thoughtful trip. A decision is made. By 12:02 a.m., we are driving toward Syracuse, a 675 mile trip. As a hopeful note to all those LTHers who are undergraduates, to whom there is as yet no romance quite like that of the spontaneous "ROAD TRIP!!!", you will be pleased to know that 20 or 25 years from now, you can still let 'er rip on a full tank of gas, a moment's notice, a 20-oz. Mountain Dew and a lack of good sense.

Well, long story short, we got there. It's a 12-hour drive to Syracuse, and you just don't know tired until you've been "started driving at midnight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York" tired. Which I have now been. Thank God for the half moon cookies (what they call "black and white" cookies in NYC and in all the other places in the U.S. where they don't actually make the cookies but do get Seinfeld reruns). I took some pictures of one of them, and if I can find my USB cable, I'll upload them here. C[hrist] all F[ing] M[ighty]!

JimInLoganSquare wrote:Well, here's an invitation for one such as I to impart a moral lesson on merry Christmases, and why we must keep them and never invite strangers to bitch about them.

Our (Mrs. JiLS's and mine) Christmas, as always, was in Syracuse, New York, her home town and where her family still calls home. And what fun was had! To set the scene: Sunday, December 23. Our flight is to leave at 3:58 p.m. from O'Hare. We are there two hours in advance, just to be safe. Smiling like two baboons with a brand new pot full of bacon grease. And then, the usual airline nickel and dime crap begins; no way they'll just tell you to go the f*** home; no, it's 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there, and before you know it, 5 hours pass. Eventually, a little before 9:00 p.m., United Airlines finally finds a plane and a sober pilot, and we're good to go. Hello, Syracuse! Merry Christmas, you old Savings and Loan! Merry X-Mas, everybody!

After about 40 minutes of d***ing (see, "dicking") around with the stairs (that's right, stairs; this is a flight to Syracuse, New York; they don't waste the "sky bridges" on those), we are up, up and away. Fifteen minutes into the wild black yonder, and our captain announces we're heading back to O'Hare, and yes, for those who are keeping score, it technically IS an "emergency landing," but don't get upset [call a lawyer]. Despite all the fire engines you are going to see down there. And, indeed, they shut down all the runways at O'Hare so that our little regional jet could skid down unimpeded with its ice-laden wings (that was the emergency; the defrosters were on the fritz, although this was apparently only discovered AFTER we were 20,000 feet in the air). 10:02 p.m., and we're on the ground. 10:40, and they finally figure out this plane ain't going nowhere tonight, and they cancel the flight and tell us to get the hell off. Fine, United. Just fine.

A long, long El ride back to Logan Square. A thoughtful trip. A decision is made. By 12:02 a.m., we are driving toward Syracuse, a 675 mile trip. As a hopeful note to all those LTHers who are undergraduates, to whom there is as yet no romance quite like that of the spontaneous "ROAD TRIP!!!", you will be pleased to know that 20 or 25 years from now, you can still let 'er rip on a full tank of gas, a moment's notice, a 20-oz. Mountain Dew and a lack of good sense.

Well, long story short, we got there. It's a 12-hour drive to Syracuse, and you just don't know tired until you've been "started driving at midnight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York" tired. Which I have now been. Thank God for the half moon cookies (what they call "black and white" cookies in NYC and in all the other places in the U.S. where they don't actually make the cookies but do get Seinfeld reruns). I took some pictures of one of them, and if I can find my USB cable, I'll upload them here. C[hrist] all F[ing] M[ighty]!

My condolences for your hellish ordeal. I've been there (both on the plane and in the car) - trust me. (One year, after finishing my first semester of finals in my 3rd year of law school, I jumped in the car at 5 am for a 12 hour drive - except that I had been up until 1 am on a bender the night before (if you can call it a bender with the tame law school crowd). Bad idea.) But I feel your pain. I needed something like 6 20-oz gas-station coffees to make it. After awhile, I couldn't go to sleep even if I tried.

I hope your Christmas was worth the trouble, as I'm sure it was otherwise, you wouldn't have such a sense of humor about it.