This year, like every other year, I flew to Florida for the holidays. Don't get too excited, it's the opposite of glamourous. I was born and raised in Florida and my whole family (parents, 3 brothers, and grandma) all live there. I'm just lucky enough to call one of the most desired vacation spots home.
For the first time ever I flew on Christmas Eve. I was prepared for the absolute worst and the entire week before Christmas, scenes from Home Alone were playing on repeat in my mind. I could just see myself racing from gate to gate with crowds of people and Run Run Rudolph playing over the speakers.
I was completely prepared for the worst travel day of my life that could quite possibly end with me sleeping on a terminal floor or standing at a ticket counter begging the poor airline representative to find me a flight to Florida.
To my pleasant surprise, my travels were quite the opposite of terrible. In fact, it was one of the most pleasant travel experiences I've ever had, even though I flew American Airlines (my most hated airline). First off, security was a breeze. Second, there was barely anyone in the airports. Third, everyone was so relaxed and pleasant.
I was in the last boarding group on my flight from Dallas to Orlando (boo). Because it costs a billion dollars to check a bag now days, in my experience, by the time the final group boards there usually isn't much space left in the overhead compartments. No surprise that was the case for me. However, instead of the usual response of people being passive aggressive and sometimes just flat out aggressive about the fact that you are holding up the other passengers trying to board or God forbid moving their coat (that shouldn't be in the overhead anyway) to make room for your bag, when the lady behind me saw I was looking for room for my suitcase, she stood up to try and find an open space and then mentioned there was one a few rows in front of me. Then the guy in front of me stood up, took his bag out of the overhead compartment, moved his bag to the compartment a few rows in front of us, and then put mine in the open space above my seat! I was so shocked that I just kept saying thank you over and over again. I still can't believe how nice and helpful everyone was.
Obviously once I exited the plane in Orlando, that's when the shoving and yelling started, but that's my usual welcome home greeting - people in Central Florida are not exactly the kindest folks. Plus, I'm fully convinced Orlando International Airport breed insanity.
My mom and brother Sam picked me up from the airport and we pulled into our driveway in Ocala somewhere around 9pm with dinner ready and waiting on the table. Christmas Eve dinner is a big deal for our family. Every year we have seafood. It's an Italian tradition (I know I'm super white, but my Dad is actually full blood Italian so we were raised with some Italian traditions). The meal includes 7 kinds of fish and it brings good luck.
Christmas morning was a little bit of a slow start compared to every other year. I was pretty jet lagged and now that the youngest LaSelva is 15, most of the excitement of Christmas morning has drained from the holiday. The big excitement this day was that it was the first time the entire family was together since last Christmas - a whole year!
The box I made for Josh.
A hat I bought for J.J. - it wasn't on his list but I found it and thought he would love it. Luckily I was right!
The family gift this year was a ping pong table. Dad hid it behind some wood in the garage until the dramatic unveiling after all other gifts had been opened.
Besides the fact that it was 80 degrees on Christmas day, (no complaints here) there were a few more parts of our day that were extremely stereotypical of a Florida Christmas. Sam's big gift was a surfboard and Mom surprised Dad with a fruit cocktail tree - several trees that have been grafted together so that multiple types of tropical fruit grow on the same tree.
After playing with our presents for a few hours we had our Christmas day late lunch/early dinner of ham and "the fix'ns." Then around 3:00 I laid down for a nap. I woke up around 9:00! When I walked into the dark living room my mom said she figured I was probably tired so she let me sleep - all day! I talked to her for about an hour and then went and laid back down.
Merry Christmas to me - a day where a spent more time asleep then awake!
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