To establish the right atmosphere for reading this blog post, you might want to listen to Wham's "Last Christmas".
We spent Christmas 2008 in Mayville, NY. After a 6-hour snow delay in Chicago, we understood WHY the tickets had been so reasonably priced: no one in their right mind transits through Chicago in the winter. To make matters worse, we had to drive from the Buffalo airport tired and jetlagged in horrendous weather: snow, sleet, and rain. Instead of arriving at Kathie/Mhom’s house around 11pm as planned, we pulled into the driveway around 6am, the day after we left France.