It’s official, Santa does come to vans on Christmas Day, he visited us and brought a giant bear and a doll jeep.
Christmas Cheer and Santa’s Sleigh
I love Christmastime, a time of accepted magic and cheer. Christmastime makes me imagine a warm welcoming house, filled with family, singing Christmas carols by a cozy fire, sharing cookies and hot cocoa. It’s pretty hard for people with dysfunctional families to create memories like this. We decided to give our children a van ski Christmas instead.
It was a pretty magical Christmas morning, Santa even came to our van! So our van was filled with Christmas cheer, tons of love, and some good ski memories. Santa brought a giant bear and a doll jeep, despite no van chimney. The girls even checked, there was no reindeer prints anywhere in sight. It’s true, Santa always finds a way.
Driving in a Winter Storm on Christmas Eve
There was an epic storm Christmas Eve, and the SNO-Parks were deep in snow. We couldn’t get in to the SNO-Park near Kirkwood Ski Resort even with 4×4, feet of snow covered the entry. At this point, we couldn’t turn back and we just needed a warm safe place to sleep. The highway was at this point completely closed, plows were barrelling through everywhere trying to keep up with the dump. Even the ski lodging was closed for the night and not an option. It was crazy.
I will never drive up to Tahoe during an epic snow storm like this again, unless we are already parked safely at a SNO-Park. Being snowed in somewhere safe was a glorious image by midnight, but the current situation was a closed SNO-Park, and closed highway home, so we had no choice but to head onto the resort. It was super late at night on Christmas Eve, so we thought we’d would compassion from the staff at Kirkwood. Prayed we’d be allowed to stay in the parking lot. Not so much.
Kirkwood Has A Real Grinch
There are real grinches out there. The Kirkwood staff (grinch) knocked on our door after we parked. Dad pleaded, “come on, it’s midnight on Christmas Eve and my kids are in the back of the van sleeping.” The Kirkwood employee (grinch) said “I don’t want to be here either.” Wow. He went on to say he did not care that the SNO-Park was closed, he did not care the highway was closed, he did not care there was nowhere to go, he did not care at all.
Ski life in Tahoe is pretty cold place to be sometimes. Some people really suck here. It was OK, when there is nowhere to go but in circles, you do that. Eventually, a heroic snow plow carved a narrow entry into the SNO-Park for us after we circled for over an hour. We were so relieved, snow plow guys are awesome, parking attendants, not so much.
We aren’t powder hounds, and did not realize how protective people get in powder days in Tahoe. I think the Kirkwood staff thought we were powder hounds trying to break the rules, and didn’t realize we were just a new ski family trying to make Christmas magical for our children. In our van home (vome).
Skiing on Christmas Day
The events that unfolded on Christmas Eve were nothing short of crazy. But despite the chaos, we managed to make it skiing on Christmas Day – a magical celebration of survival and resilience. The ski van played a crucial role in making this possible, allowing us to hit the slopes as a family and make memories that would last a lifetime.
