Day 18: Christmas at the Waffle House

After the expe­ri­ence I had with “Do You Have Room?” last Christ­mas, my resolve grew even stronger to sim­plify, but I didn’t know how sim­ple our Christ­mas would actu­ally be. In fact, we would have one with hardly any trap­pings at all.

But that wasn’t nec­es­sar­ily our plan. We planned to take the two sons who were in town with us and fly to Indi­ana, where our old­est son lives with his fam­ily, includ­ing our only two grand­chil­dren. It was to be a sur­prise – we would land in Indi­anapo­lis, buy food for our tra­di­tional Christ­mas Eve din­ner, and go car­ol­ing to their home just as it got dark.

We boarded the plane the morn­ing of Christ­mas Eve and checked one large duf­fel bag with everyone’s presents in it. We had been in the air for about 2 hours, when we heard this over the inter­com: “Folks, this is your cap­tain speak­ing. I wish I had good news for you, but I do not.”

Now, I’m pretty sure this would make the top ten list of “Things You Never Want to Hear Your Pilot Say.” Along with the next part. The elec­tri­cal sys­tem on the left side of the plane had failed about 30 min­utes before. And the sys­tem on the right side had just gone down, also. “So,” the pilot said, “We’re run­ning totally on aux­il­lary power, and we’ll have to make an emer­gency land­ing as soon as possible.”

I thought of all the emer­gency land­ings I’d ever heard about — on crowded free­ways, into wooded hill­sides, or worse – neigh­bor­hoods. I was very ner­vous. Then a really happy thought occurred to me. We were over Kansas. I couldn’t see any­thing out of my win­dow except for clouds, but I was pretty sure that there’d be a place to land in Kansas. I pic­tured climb­ing out of the plane and into a corn­field. Turns out, we didn’t have to land in a corn­field, but we touched down, safe and sound, at the Kansas City Airport…..which we got to know well, because we were there for nine hours.

Then they put us on a plane bound for Atlanta. Why? I have no idea, but that’s where we went, and when we landed, the air­port was deserted, except for one poor Delta agent, try­ing to help 300 peo­ple. My hus­band asked, “Is there any­one else here?” And she answered, “It’s Christ­mas Eve! Everyone’s gone home.”

What a great idea….

By the time we checked in to a nearby hotel, it was 11:30 PM. We were really hun­gry, and the only place to eat was 2 blocks away, and it was pour­ing rain. So we ran, through the rain, and arrived sop­ping wet at the Waf­fle House, which adver­tised that it had been open for 50 years. And it looked like it. I mean, I don’t think they’d changed a thing. There were a few quiet cus­tomers scat­tered around the restau­rant, and 3 employ­ees work­ing in the open kitchen, and I was pretty sure none of them wanted to be there.

I won­dered how to lift the spir­its of the place and make it seem at all like Christ­mas Eve. I spied a juke box in the cor­ner. Music! Music would change the whole atmos­phere! I knew there wouldn’t be any­thing reli­gious, but maybe “Jin­gle Bells” or “White Christ­mas.” No. My choices, inex­plic­a­bly, were,  “Grandma Got Run Over by a Rein­deer.” And “Daddy, Don’t get Drunk this Christ­mas.” Christ­mas Clas­sics. Need­less to say, I didn’t play either one of them.

We sat at the table and laughed like you do when you are tired enough to be giddy. It didn't matter what anybody said -- it was funny. Our food came. Here it is.

The first time in 30 years we didn’t have Teriyaki Steak and home­made rolls and cheese­cake for Christ­mas Eve din­ner. Still, it tasted pretty good, and we fin­ished eat­ing, got a short night’s sleep, and flew to Indi­ana the next day.

Not only did we arrive much later than we planned, but we did not come bear­ing food or gifts. Because all the gro­cery stores were closed, and the duf­fel bag that held our presents had been routed… to Cincinnati.

But we were safe, and we were together, and it was still a sur­prise. We read the Christ­mas story, ate a sim­ple meal, and played with the boys. It looked a lot dif­fer­ent than years past, but  just like 18 years ago, we didn’t miss Christ­mas. We had a great time. And there wasn’t a present, a feast, or a func­tion in sight.

I learned again the true gifts of Christmas, and was reminded how our Savior seeks to enfold us in His arms, no matter who we are, or where.