Often on those holiday rounds, bitterly cold temperatures submerged themselves double-digits below zero, so we wrapped the kids like pigs in blankets, wearing gloves and boots and carrying sleeping bags for emergency backup. It never did get really warm in the airplane, so Jean and I peered out through frost-fringed windows to avoid errant flying reindeer and identify our snow-camouflaged destinations.
We never doubted it was Christmas back then, thanks to "Happy Holidays" clearances issued by friendly controllers, Santa's sleigh and reindeer annually shrouding Lafayette Tower, and ATIS at DuPage County Airport named to a seasonal phonetic alphabet - Information Christmas Tree, Information Reindeer, and Information Santa. Even better was the year that the tower controllers recorded the ATIS broadcast to the tune of Jingle Bells.
For seasonal reinforcement, of course, there was always the abominable Chicago wintertime weather, with snow swirling about our propeller, slippery runways, and ice-filled clouds. We always made it to our holiday destinations, though - even if we did occasionally arrive or depart a day late - and the warm homes of relatives offered us rich respite from the bitter wintertime elements.
But all that being said, I revel in today's vistas of distant mountains and clear-blue skies and suddenly recognize a subtle element of rightness to this year's holiday travel. It is, after all, the first time since moving to Arizona that we've had occasion to fly on Christmas Day to join with relatives. Receding below us is holiday traffic as we've seen so many times before, although this time some hardy souls are driving convertibles with tops retracted instead of slithering through slush. Still, it's easy enough to imagine the rowdy kids and mounds of gifts inside those cars and the countless smiling, white-haired grandmothers awaiting them at their destinations.
Now, after skimming low over mountains, we turn final at private La Cholla airstrip, where we have received prior permission to land. With its prickly-pear-and-ocotillo setting, scattered rancho-style adobes, and gravelly approaches, La Cholla plays the part of an old-time holiday ranch, where Sky King's Songbird should be parked on the ramp and Roy Rogers or Rex Allen might greet us on horseback, there to sing cowboy carols before a roaring fire and a Christmas tree in the aging airport clubhouse.
We taxi past welcoming arms of giant Saguaro cacti on the quiet and just-a-little-bit-ragged ramp, and although no singing cowboys meet us, we get an even better greeting. There stands my sister-in-law with lovely teenaged daughters Rachel and Jillian and my young nephews Danny and Sean. Rachel ogles the cockpit, but Danny and Sean are mostly interested in opening those little spring-hinged doors used for accessing air valves through our Cessna's wheel fairings. They peer inside with heads upside down, seeking whatever curiosities might be found by little boys. They scamper back and forth between one wheel and another until distracted by the veritable mountain of presents emerging from our baggage compartment.
Rachel wants to fly, so I look to my sister-in-law for approval, which she silently grants with a "You will be careful..." smile and a nod of her head. Neither Jilly nor the boys want to go, so we install Rachel in the cockpit with a headset and a grin and pirouette over her house nestled with its swimming pool against the nearby Santa Catalina Mountains.
"Would you like to fly?" I ask Rachel as we bank toward lower terrain. She takes the controls, and I am treated to the winning smile some lucky young man will undoubtedly fall for in the very near future. I know at this moment that Rachel's present will be the best I'll give this holiday - yet one more ticket to a young person's latent dream of flying, hatched at this magical moment and never to be abandoned whether she eventually becomes a pilot or not. I suppose that in this regard I'm even luckier with my Flying Carpet than is Santa with his sleigh; after all, how often does he get to share his gift of flight?
All too soon for Rachel we touch down again on the narrow and rugged strip, and we pile all together into a dusty van for the short ride to my brother's house. More presents await us there, plus seductive aromas of pies and turkey and all the fixin's.
"Put on your bathing suit," says my brother, after a warm embrace. "The margaritas are made, and the swimming pool's waiting." Guess there are some good sides to this new holiday tradition, and I'll just have to get used to 'em. Santa, eat your heart out.