After many emails back and forth, plane tickets were reserved and bought LAST AUGUST. We knew Christmas is a time of the year when everybody in the Western world goes somewhere so as we really wanted to celebrate Christmas here in Panama with the girls and David, we started it all very early. Joel and I were over the moon, it had been five whole years since we last spent Christmas together as a family of five. I had announced to all my friends that "The girls and David" were coming, Joel and I had already planned to do all sorts of things with them around the city, had made reservations to go to one of the Pacific Ocean beaches to spend New year's eve there, had made plans to spend Christmas Eve at a friend's house, had tickets to the Christmas Cantata... we thought we had it all under control and well planned. All we needed to have it happening, were the safe landings of all three of them.
However, that was not as God had in His almighty plans... thus new plans were layout before us.
The first one to land was Anna. She came from 40ºC Rio de Janeiro, so Panama's 29ºC was not bad at all. She arrived on December 14th. As she was the one to stay longer, she was to participate in a couple of year–end parties we were attending.
Then it was time for Alice to land from freezing England. She was to leave the UK on the 18th very early. Joel and I, as we always do when they are traveling, were keeping track of her whereabouts through the internet, using the "Flight Status" on the company's website or chatting using "BBM" or "WhatsApp" (amen for those, free and very useful!). It was all good, she had arrived safely at Heathrow, had checked in, was happy to have been given access to the lounge, had boarded the plane and had sent us a last BBM saying she was now seated on her seat, the plane's door was already closed and kissed us good bye, looking forward for our next chat as soon as she would land in NY after crossing "the Pond". Life was good... one daughter already here, another one on her way here and son in law closing his "to do list" before taking off on the 23rd... or so we thought...
A few minutes after Alice's last BBM to us, she comes in again to let us know that ... after reaching the "take off" point on the runway, her plane was going back to the gate for the snow that was falling had turned into a blizzard!!
Oh no, we really didn't need that... was she for real or just testing our humor at 2AM Panama time? We rushed to the company's web site and voila, the flight was indeed going back to the gate and was to wait for the blizzard to be over, therefore at that point, it was just a "delayed flight". Her connection to Panama in NY was slowly slipping away... slowly slipping away... probably was going to be missed and yes, it was missed.
My dear readers, we were just facing the beginning of an incredible long saga of a mother nature angry show of global warming with early winter blizzards in unexpected places and all the rest you can think of.
Making a VERY LONG story short, Alice and David were able to finally land in sunny Panama City, after THREE canceled flights, on December 28th. From the airport, we went straight to the beach and celebrated our Christmas on that same night. Surely, somewhere in this world of ours, it was still the 25th, right?
Their respective bosses, were very understanding and agreed to change their return dates, so oba, all good once again. It was awesome to be a family of five once again, with loads of chats and stories, loads of all reading together, cooking together... you know... just loads of togetherness.
This Christmas, we started a new tradition in our family: once a year when we are together, we will watch one of the traditional films out there. The one chosen to start this tradition was "Sound of Music". Some of us had watched it endless times (some in days when VCRs nor DVD were available, which meant actually going to the movies accountable times, ha ha ha). The next movie to be watched has not been fully decided, but "Mary Poppins" has a good chance to win the election.
The cute thing of this new tradition (apologies for not been humble about our tradition, LOL) was the fact that in the film, at a certain point, Maria taught the children a good bye song to be sung to guests at their mansion and later at the end of the movie, at the festival the family took part of. So, suddenly, when we were waving good bye to Anna, the first to leave Panama, who was at the immigration line, the four who stayed behind (Joel, myself, Alice and David) sang "Bye Bye, So Long, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu..." for her, imitating the choreography they did in the movie. A few days later, the three of us (Joel, Alice and myself), sang it to David (also repeating the choreography) who was the second to leave Panama, and this morning, Joel and I sang it to Alice as she disappeared into immigration...
Driving back home, Joel and I were simply cherishing the memories of how it had all been so great in spite the endless negative surprises we faced. Amen amen.
The girls
Togetherness
Happy New year to you!
