The last time I had a white Christmas was in 1995 with Alice and my parents in New York. It was just so magical! Yes, New York does get muddy and slippery with all those people walking and having a life in the snow, but never mind, Central Park was gorgeously white! Our Christmas dinner was at Tavern on the Green, which of course, was more like "Tavern on the White" than on the Green. Their Christmas decoration was absolutely the best, " La crème de la crême"!
So, as it has been more than a decade since I last had a white Christmas, Joel has for the past couple of Christmas, tried very hard to fulfill my dream of renewing this magical feeling. With global warming in the hit parade, our geographical choices were less and less available, but still possible.
However, for a variety of reasons, the White Christmas dream did not come true in the last two years and when we did the maths of all our events this year end, we came to the conclusion that it could happen this year. 2009 would be the year! Hurray!
We than started our world search when our good old friends, the V. D. K. invited us over to their place up in Canada. Just perfect I thought, they are good old friends, Canada is right up the America's hill, practically no jet-lag... life is beautiful... oh great, it's all coming together!
Plane reservations were made and when the day to pay for them came up, our travel agent called us asking if she could go straight ahead with issuing the tickets and just as a by the way she asked Joel in a confirming tone of voice, if we had visas for Canada. Ouch, that sentence did not sound right. Next day I went on trying to find out how to proceed with my visa (Joel has a French passport, therefore doesn't need a visa for Canada) only to find out that Panama being the small country it is and clearly not having enough business with Canada, does not deserve a whole embassy/ consulate here. All matters have to be dealt in Guatemala through a tiny business office here in Panama. That meant a waiting period for the visa from 2 to 3 weeks. Issuing the tickets without the certainty that I would get a visa was not an option and waiting til December 22nd was also not an option, because if it didn't come through it would be too late for us to get tickets to go anywhere.
We than trying hiring a cottage a friend has in Colorado, where we can go in and out with no problems, but... it was already hired for that week... white Christmas dream postponed for some other time.
However, although completely different from what we had originally thought, I am quite looking for plan C - "From a white Christmas to a Gulf Christmas". We are going to a dear and old friend's place (he went to college with Joel) in Houston for Christmas and New Year's in New Orleans.
It's a pity the animosity between countries just gets bigger and bigger. I so pray and wish for a more friendly relationship between all countries!
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