I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams.
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
The secret was out at 3pm Christmas Eve in Melbourne. I made a surprise trip home for Christmas! This surprise trip was the reason for much of my non-blogging over the past few months – so much of what I was doing and organizing was for this trip! 🙂
So let’s backtrack a bit…
Mum, dad and I were in Las Vegas back in May. On the Saturday night, Collingwood got beaten by Carlton and as usual, I cracked the sads majorly.
I had booked a flight home earlier in the year when Qantas has specials on just-in-case we made the finals. So like any other Collingwood supporter who has so many bad memories of losses to Carlton I said one big “ENOUGH!” to Collingwood and changed my flights for trip home in December that would be a surprise for mum and dad. At the time I was changing my flights, mum and dad were sound asleep in the same hotel room and I started this little plan that I was just absolutely so excited that keeping this secret has literally been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
Now this is where it gets complicated AND expensive. With Collingwood being Collingwood, they made a mega comeback during the season. It was looking more and more like we were a) definitely going to be in the finals and b) there was a very good chance we’d make the grand final. I let this go on and on when I was so stressed out, I went and booked ANOTHER flight to Melbourne for Grand Final week . Aghrghrghr so this time I had two flights booked – one just in case and one that I couldn’t really tell anyone about. When Collingwood lost in the Preliminary Final, that was the flight that became my April flight. So I have been donating to the Qantas cause quite diligently with the amounts I have been charged to change flights!
Anyway, with my flight booked back in May, I set about working out the plan to make this really happen. Firstly, I worked my backside off for the rest of the year to get the family history finished. It was finished in the first week of December… over 50 pages and 11,000 words later. I found a fabulous place that printed and bound it for me without it breaking the bank and this would be part of my Christmas present. As well as the book, I organized a beautiful Family Tree Poster through Ancestry.com. I will write more about that other journey later. I came over with two cases – one with gifts, one with my belongings!
In a nutshell this is how I got away with it…
Only three people with connections to the family knew – Bill, Ev and Shannyn. They all did a wonderful job of not saying a word!
Everyone thought I was going to Albany for Christmas. Bill and I were ‘to be leaving’ on the Amtrak on the afternoon of Tuesday December 22nd. We would be staying and Dan and Paula’s so I wouldn’t have good phone coverage for emails. 😉 Bill would be coming back to the City on Boxing Day, I was going to stay Upstate for a weeklong rest until after New Years.
I told mum that I had organized Fed Ex to deliver their presents on Christmas Eve. I also told her not to worry if she wasn’t home as I left specific instructions for it to be left on the verandah. Originally, mum and dad were both working Christmas Eve – this was no issue though as I still had the house key! As we had Christmas Day at our house this year, mum took Christmas Eve off for the first time in 38 years. Go Mum! Earlier in the year I had been sending her Christmas Day to-do lists and timelines as I didn’t want her stressing on Christmas Eve… anything to make it more fun when I arrived!
To get my brother to be there, I told him that we would surprise mum and dad with a surprise Skype call on Christmas eve so we can open our presents over the computer. I also said to him that it would be very good of him to be there to help mum and dad get things ready for Christmas. I had chatted to nana a few days before and told her on Christmas Day I would be doing a surprise call, so she wouldn’t think it was strange for not calling her on Christmas Eve.
Just before I boarded the flight in NY, I emailed mum at the usual time we would’ve got to Albany telling her we got there safely. What I had also done was drafted an email that would be sent to mum at lunchtime on Wednesday NY time when I was in the air. This was one saying we were having a great time and that it was just SO COLD! She would get this on Christmas Eve morning and as I would show up a few hours later, it would hold my cover enough. Bill logged into my account and sent it as scheduled so we were set!
At the other end of the flight, Evan would be waiting at the airport to pick me up and he would drive me home and film the surprise. He also had to put up with me saying repeatedly “Mum and dad are going to crack it big time…. we are going to get into so much trouble…!”
That was all it took…. and this is how it happened…
I think you can see just how nervous I was doing this… and just to let you know, the first thing Matthew said to me was… “YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE ON SKYPE!” The excitement actually happened when after the video finishes. Mum and I were screaming so much, the neighbours actually came out to see what was going on. Aunty Marg thought she was hearing things and was thinking “That sounds like Jenelle…” she slowly walked out of her house and I could hear her calling “Jenelle? Is that you?!” Another neighbour came out in their underwear, others were just like… “What?! Is that Jenelle??!” It was just surreal. Mum was screaming and in shock, dad was there in disbelief and we were all laughing our heads off. It was the best fun to do and mum said it was the best present she could ever have wished for. Operation Christmas – 100% SUCCESS! And the fun was just beginning…!!!