CityView Magazine

publisher's note his issue of CityView is about Christmas shopping which caused me to reminisce about the past. My memory took me to a time with my brother growing up and a time when my own family took a Christmas vacation to Colorado to ski. When my brother and I were growing up on Pilot Avenue we had a couple of years in our youth when our parents had not figured out we did not believe in Santa Claus anymore. I broke the news to Eddie when he was about 10 years old and several people at church confirmed his new enlightenment. Our mother was very adroit in hiding our presents (or, at least she thought she was) which she set out in front of the fire place on Christmas Eve, pretending to be Santa. Of course, Santa had to come down a broken chimney to deliver presents for us, being the sweet angels we were (see above picture). Unbe- knowst to our parents, we usually found our presents before Christmas. One year we found presents under the bay window compartment were the Christmas tree sat and another year we even got her car keys and looked in the trunk to find them. We never could wait until Christmas to see what we were get- ting. One year Eddie mentioned that he liked a certain type of submarine toy and, of course, mother ran out and purchased it. A few weeks before Christmas, Eddie said he really wanted a battleship and not the submarine and mother tried to be coy while having a fit and saying Santa had already made his list. Looking back, those were funny times in the Waren house- hold growing up. T One of my most interesting Christmas memories was with my wife and sons. We went to Vail, Colorado with several oth- er families for a Christmas ski vacation in 1982. The trip was fantastic and had some very interesting twists. We stayed in a new ski development called Beaver Creek which, 30 years lat- er, has become very popular. My sons Hughes and Bob were 12 and 8 years old, respectively, and had never been skiing before. They learned very quickly and became quite good by 14 | November/December • 2012 Christmas Past the end of the week. The trip started on a sour note and had an interesting finish. We got our rental car at the Denver airport and drove by caravan to Beaver Creek. Soon aſter we checked into our condo we went grocery shopping. While Sandee and I were in the store, Hughes and Bob remained in the car and started rough housing with each other and managed to lose the car keys. Of course, I had "a fit and fell in it" upon this discovery. It took about 30 minutes to find the keys. It turns out they were wedged between the seats. The boys knew my limits had been pushed. We skied every day and actually skied "Christmas" run on Vail mountain on Christmas Day. That year also happened to have the worst blizzard in Denver's his- tory. All the roads were closed and the airport was closed for several days. We were scheduled to fly back to North Carolina the day aſter Christmas. The storm had come in on Christmas Eve and we were hoping the roads would be open when we were scheduled to fly out. Dudley Miller was our trip guru and he had advised we leave very early on the day of our flight to give time for slow going. That was good advice. Even when we had the airport in view it took another four hours to get there. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 2 p.m. and we had not gotten inside by 1:30. All of us just abandoned our rental cars and leſt the keys over the visor and called the company to tell them where their cars were parked. Piedmont Airlines was still operating at this time, and what a blessing because it was a North Carolina company. Our plane did not leave on time but it was the first flight out of Denver in three days and we were all on it. People had been sleeping in the airport since Christmas Eve. It was a sight to behold. The Lord blessed us that day because we could have been stranded there several days ourselves and with young children that would have been a disaster. I did not know it at the time, but God was with us on that Christmas in Colorado in 1982. I hope you all have a merry Christmas and a happy Thanks- giving with your family this year and will hold them tight.

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