This year’s Christmas was pretty interesting to say the least. The original game plan was for the four Cochrans to spend Christmas with Grandma in Kalamazoo. I was going to fly from DFW to Grand Rapids and J4 would drive up from Houston while Mom and Dad would drive up from Troy, AL.
For health reasons, Mom and Dad were unable to make the drive to Michigan. It was very weird to think that we wouldn’t be spending Christmas with them, but at least we all got to spend Thanksgiving together. See my blog post on Thanksgiving here.
I was originally going to fly to Michigan with Chloe at 3pm on Wednesday. That didn’t happen. We waited in the airport for 8+ hours to finally be told our flight was cancelled. I will say, I was very impressed that DFW Airport now has dog bathrooms. We went about 3 times and I know Chloe was thankful for that. Because the flight cancellation was a mechanical issue, American Airlines gave me several food vouchers and put me up in a nearby hotel, which was nice. What wasn’t nice was that I didn’t get my luggage back for my new unexpected overnight trip.
The next morning Chloe and I caught a 6:00 AM shuttle bus back to the airport and were able to catch the DFW to Chicago and Chicago to Kalamazoo flight.
After a long two days of travel, I was so glad to be in Kalamazoo and see Grandma at the airport. She met me by the baggage claim area. We waited for my luggage. And waited. And waited. And then I found out my luggage went to Grand Rapids, not Kalamazoo. I was in desperate need of fresh clothes so then proceeded to wear a combination of clothes donated to me by John 4 and Grandma.
Since it was just the three of us, we kept Christmas Eve very low-key. For dinner we had crackers with brie, wings and my favorite cauliflower recipe.
Christmas was lovely. We all are very blessed and thankful for the friends, family and opportunities that we all have.
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit and Kringle from Aunt Shirley. For the last several years Shirley has provided us with the best Kringle. It’s so good.
Christmas dinner ended up being rather low-key as well. Our cousins Will and Sue came over for Papa Murphy’s pizza.
On Saturday night the three of us met another cousin, Michael, for dinner followed by Forever Plaid. This was my fourth time to see Forever Plaid and I just love the music. It’s very cute.
One of the things that we’ve been meaning to do was to go through and document all of the treasures Grandma has collected over the years and write down what country everything is from.
Here are some of the cool things she has:
An original painting from Siberia and a wooden carved walking stick from China.
An elephant drum from Thailand and prayer wheel from Tibet.
A boomerang from Australia and a handmade clay jug from New Zealand.
Other treasures in her house include:
Sunday night I was supposed to fly back to DFW from Grand Rapids. After waiting several hours in that airport, my flight was cancelled. Big surprise. The next flight to Texas wouldn’t have been until Tuesday night… and there was an ice storm coming so more than likely, that would be cancelled as well. What a pickle.
J4 and Grandma were originally planning on driving to Troy, AL on Monday to see my parents. Since I didn’t want to risk staying in Michigan and possibly having another flight on Tuesday get cancelled, I checked to see what flights were available Tuesday morning out of Montgomery, AL. Low and behold, they had multiple options so John and Grandma picked me back up from the airport late Sunday night and the plan was for me to join them in the 17 hour car ride the next day. Please note, the picture below was taken of Grandma at about 11:30pm. I asked her if she had started packing yet for our 6:30am departure and she laughed and said, “no, I’m doing my nails now” to which I replied, “don’t rush into it” and of course, we laughed.
After driving 852 miles, half of which was in the rain, we finally made it to Troy, AL.
My flight was early the next morning, but it was really nice to get to see my parents for a few hours. Although this isn’t the house I grew up in, it’s still home.
2015 was really good to me and I’m excited to see what this new year brings my way. Whatever it is, I’m ready.