On the Fourth Day of Christmas my True Love gave to me 4 days without luggage

When you’re in love sometimes you do stupid things. You think differently, you act differently, and it is obvious to everyone but yourself. I would like to say that I was never in gaga mode while I was engaged but my siblings and parents would vehemently say I was! I think anyone who saw Allan and I engaged know that we were head over heels. We made a lot of really stupid and silly decisions during that time. One of which I somewhat regret. It was to have our wedding the day after finals and a week before Christmas, December 18^th.

It seemed like the best time for a wedding but in reality I hadn’t realized that I was asking everyone to spend all of their time and money on a wedding right before the biggest holiday of the season. No I couldn’t see past that because all I cared about was my day. Our families were so gracious though and they went along with it. While planning our honeymoon we decided rather than go somewhere warm, let’s go on an adventure to New York City! We could just imagine the Christmas lights, skating in Central Park, seeing a Broadway play, and keeping warm in a posh hotel. So we booked ourselves a honeymoon!

Our wedding was a fairytale. Absolutely everything went off exactly how it should have. There were no problems, nothing broke, and everyone showed up to help us. It was almost too good to be true. So that’s why everything that could have gone wrong at our wedding went wrong with our honeymoon instead!

After spending our first night in a very ritzy hotel we spent the next day just relaxing and having fun until our flight departed. We arrived to the airport very early to give us some time to check in and go through security. But when we arrived it appeared that Allan had mistaken our take off time and we had missed the plane by a half hour. Allan was very upset with himself but I stayed calm and said it wasn’t a big deal. They charged us a small fee to change planes and instead we took the red eye to New York.

Allan’s a pretty big guy and when you put a 6’7 man in to a seat fit for a 5’5 person you have problems. The plane ride was nonstop but uncomfortable for Allan since he had nowhere to put his legs but in the middle of the aisle. The next morning we arrived in New York and were excited to have a fun honeymoon without anymore hiccups. We waited near the carousal for our bags as they were dropping down the chute. One by one passengers from our flight would step forward to retrieve their luggage and we waited for our turn. But soon the crowd was thinning and the conveyer began to slow and we still had no luggage.

We went directly to the office agent and stood in the back of a long line of people whom had also not received their luggage. After patiently waiting we got to the front and were told that our bags were put on a different plane, but not to worry because we would have them by that night. While Allan spoke to the agent I stepped out of the office and committed the cardinal sin of calling my mother on my honeymoon. “Mom they lost our luggage,” I said, “what are we going to do?” My mother being so positive said “Cheer up it’s not a big deal. You’ll get you’ll luggage. Just have fun!”

I guess I needed to hear that from her because my attitude changed . . . until we got outside. We were further delayed because all of our hotel and shuttle information had been packed in our suitcase. So a nice agent let us use her computer so we could print off all the addresses, phone numbers, and names we needed. We walked outside and a blast of ice cold air hit my face. How cold was it? Oh just in the 20’s. It was freezing and I was freezing. “Were not in Kansas anymore,” I muttered under my breath. We sat at the bus stop for another half hour before it came to get us.

Entering the bus was like slipping in to a hot bath after jumping in a cold river. It was that tingling shock to my nervous system. Up to this point we were mostly just annoyed with everything that had happened but now I just wanted to curl up and drape a snuggie over me. When we arrived to the hotel we were extremely tired and hungry. Our hotel was literally across the street from ground zero and our window faced directly over it. This was both depressing and cool. We spent the better part of the afternoon sleeping and ordering room service.

That night we still had not seen our luggage so we called the airline and they again promised us they would have it to our hotel in the morning. Foolishly I had packed everything in our bags . . . I mean everything. All the way down to my birth control pills. This made for a very awkward realization on Allan’s part. When it was realized he was the first to volunteer to take on the dark streets of the city in search of a convenient store for toiletries among other things.

We spent the next four days touring, walking around downtown, seeing Broadway musicals, shopping, and sipping carmel apple cider from Starbucks three times a day. We laughed about all of the crazy things that were happening to us.  And no, we still didn’t have our luggage! We would literally wash our clothes in the sink at night and then hang them out to dry every day. All of our pictures from our honeymoon look like they were taken on the same day because we were in the same clothes.

Finally on the last night before our departure our luggage arrived. Not only were their rips and tears on the outside but they had broken the wheels on the bottom of them which made it impossible for us to roll them as we walked. So the next morning we carried our heavy bags to the subway in order for us to get to the airport. When we arrived at the airport there was a horrible snow storm and we were delayed by an hour. The entire time on the plane we just prayed we would make our next flight.

We arrived in Minneapolis to much worse weather conditions. We barely made our plane but were held up on the tarmac for 3 hours. When it was finally our time to take off the pilots informed us that they had reached the amount of hours they were allotted to fly and that we would have to go back to the terminal and get off the plane. It was an almost laughable moment. Are you serious? I thought. Well needless to say we didn’t ever make it on another plane that night. Instead we slept on the floor huddled together on our jackets with hundreds of other passengers.

The next morning we took the first flight we could to anywhere but there. We ended up in Los Angeles and it was the day before Christmas. Have you ever seen a Christmas movie where someone is trying their hardest to make it home and yet everything just keeps going wrong? That was us all the way because now we were being told that we wouldn’t get a flight home until Christmas day. We were so fed up that we went to another airline and purchased two one way tickets home. Luckily everything went so smoothly with the last leg of the trip and we were just glad to be back in Utah.

In all of the wedding plans, honeymoon woes, and travel trouble I had completely forgotten to buy Allan a gift. Here we were our first Christmas together and I had nothing to give him. I entertained the thought of running to the store for about a minute but decided that sleep was more important.

The next morning we awoke and watched my family open their gifts. Allan had not purchased anything for me either which made me feel better because at least we were even. Then my mom suggested we open all of our wedding gifts. Suddenly I became giddy with excitement at the prospect of opening lots of gifts. I did have something to open! We walked upstairs to the family room where an entire room was filled to the brim with wedding presents. Allan and I immediately dug in and no kidding, 3 hours later we had finished. It was the best Christmas morning ever! We felt so blessed to have received so many beautiful things.

Needless to say that our first Christmas holiday together was not what we expected. We had a fantastic wedding, a catastrophic honeymoon, and a cheery Christmas morning despite not giving anything to each other. And the most important thing – we were able to laugh through it all! I took this as a good sign of things to come, and wouldn’t you know that the humor in our marriage has gotten us through so many difficult times. Make sure in your life you save room for laughter because after all, it is the best medicine.