I received a frantic call this morning from Santa Claus. Santa and I are life-long friends. How could we not be? We both love snow. We are cookie connoisseurs. Our favorite color is red. Our chosen profession is in aviation. I do work a few more days out of the year than Santa….but, barely. Ho! Ho! Ho! You may think Santa was frantic because Christmas is just a few days away and it’s crunch time at the North Pole. If you thought this you’d be wrong. Santa’s Christmas system is the envy of Amazon. Santa was frantic because I haven’t posted my annual ornaments blog….and it’s almost Christmas. Kris Kringle!! I’ve been so busy making gumdrop cookies, homemade marshmallows and getting ingredients for making a Yule log I almost forgot about my blog! Well, I can’t disappoint my friend Santa. Especially so close to Christmas. So here are the ornaments that made the “Oh My Ornaments” 2022 list. There were many more that I added to my collection this year. I didn’t want to end up on Santa’s naughty list, so I kept the 2022 list rather short. Merry Christmas!

I may have a serious Charleston Christmas ornament problem. I admit. I have several Charleston ornaments. I bought this ornament on my last layover. It depicts the houses on Rainbow Row. I simply adore it. I can’t wait to go back to Charleston to purchase another Christmas ornament. Don’t worry. Every Charleston ornament gets Santa’s seal of approval.

Instead of sweating in Athens in July, I went to Burlington. I happily spent way too much money. More importantly, I discovered maple lattes are beyond delicious. Yessiree. It was a challenge to find a Christmas ornament in July. But, I accepted the challenge and I prevailed!

You all know how apprehensive I was to go to Knoxville. Thankfully, I knew Ron was with me the whole time. I guess it’s appropriate I got an ornament of the Henley Street Bridge. I needed to cross the bridge of grief associated with Knoxville. It’s still not the easiest city for me to travel to. But, it was a step in the right direction.

I didn’t make it to Mount Rushmore on my Rapid City layover. However, I did visit Mount Rushmore when I was younger and my family was traveling back to Montana. Unbelievably, I wasn’t into collecting Christmas ornaments back then. I guess you can call this a long overdue purchase.

I was delirious to be back in my home state of Montana this spring. So delirious I bought Christmas ornaments at every stop. My brown glass blown ornament from Glacier National Park is exquisite in it’s simplicity. The whimsical bear ornaments from Glacier and Whitefish make me chuckle every time I spy them on the tree. Yessiree. These three ornaments from Montana are “beary” special to me. Ho! Ho! Ho! I know Santa’s belly shook like a bowl full of jelly with that comment. I hope it filled your heart with merriment, too. Merry Christmas my sweet friends. See you in 2023!

Every Skytress and Skyter knows a hotel can make or break a layover. Hotel amenities, hotel location and hotel decor can tip the scales in one direction or the other. We do have a hotel committee that is responsible for picking out our layover hotels. I know there are numerous criteria that go into their hotel selection for each layover city. I, too have my criteria for a layover hotel. My mental checklist is activated as soon as we pull up to a hotel property. Yessiree. I’m constantly checking out my surroundings while we are checking-in.

I definitely get a feel for a hotel as soon as I walk into the lobby. We used to layover in a hotel in Panama City, Florida, that had more ceiling fans in the main lobby than are hanging in Home Depot. The lobby, also, had mirrored walls. So, the fans multiplied exponentially. Most people would think they were having a stroke. Not me. I broke out in laughter. I knew if the lobby was this bizarre, the hotel room had to be something to behold. And it was. The bathroom was something one had to experience to truly be horrified and humored at the same time. I kid you not. The shower was blood red. There was, also, a matching red phone in the bathroom. Crew members joked about this hotel for years. It was much like the layover hotel in Flint, Michigan. Crews were baffled by this layover hotel, too. Many times the hotel staff would give us the up-graded rooms with the jacuzzis. Although I truly appreciated their thoughtfulness, I would always request a guest room without the jacuzzi. I couldn’t sleep with a time-worn yellowed jacuzzi tub positioned three feet from my bed. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop laughing at the site of it. Yessiree. It, too, was horrifying and humorous at the same time. Not surprisingly, there are numerous layover hotel bathroom designs that are head-scratching confusing. Heck. I’ve stayed in hotel rooms at our layover hotel in Tallahassee where the bathroom is completely open to the rest of the room. Of course, there are slider doors guests can pull together to enclose the bathroom. However, the doors are usually pushed back into the walls when you first enter the room. I always pull the slider doors out. Otherwise, it’s just weird to look at the exposed bathroom. The bathroom at our layover hotel in Phoenix has a door that closes off the toilet and showered area. Unfortunately, the room is exceptionally small. Yessiree. One basically has to straddle the toilet to close the door. The bathroom sink is located smack-dab in the bedroom area. It’s inches away from the tv. I am always dumbfounded by this placement. If guests are traveling with another person, they must watch them floss and brush their teeth, wash their face, shave, put on makeup, blow dry their hair….whatever the case may be. There is no privacy while using the sink. The sink area is surrounded by carpet, too. This design feature gives me the heebie-jeebies. Oddly enough, though, I don’t actually mind this layover hotel. The front suite area has a nice refrigerator, microwave and sink area. Fun fact…Skytresses, Skyters, and Pilots relish hotel rooms with these amenities.

I do have a few other hotel pet peeve’s…..musty smelling hotel rooms….insufficient amount of hangers…..insufficient outlets, especially, near the bed….no clocks in the room, or clocks that are set wrong and cannot be changed by the hotel guest….thin bath towels….poor flushing toilets…toilets that flush so loud guests three floor down or three floors up can hear the flush…toilets that run continuously after flushing…sinks that are too low for even me…pedestal sinks…sinks with minimal surface area to place makeup and toiletry items…..window heating/air conditioning units…..beds with obvious indentations on the side by the nightstand…..adjoining rooms when you don’t know who’s adjoining on the other side of the door….and finally my biggest pet peeve…..bathrooms with poor lighting. I’m convinced ugly men design these particular bathrooms. Or else it’s their maniacal way of getting back at women. I cannot count the number of trips where Skytresses, including myself, had to ask another Skytress en-route to the airport, how our makeup looked. Poor lighting can cause one to apply too much or too little makeup. Either way, the results can be downright frightful for others.

The new hotel trend is boutique hotels. My creative souls adores these hotels. They are hip and eclectic. The decor is unique and refreshing. It’s definitely a refreshing change to the typical hotel chains. I don’t even mind having to search the light fixtures to find the light switches. I think of it as the modern day version of “Button-Button…..where’s the button?” I look all around wondering if I am getting “hotter” or “colder” when it comes to finding the light switch. The one downside of boutique hotels is the lack of regular irons. Regular irons are apparently old school. Boutique hotels are new and trendy. So, they have steamers instead of irons. Egads! I’m not a fan of steamers. I inevitably steam my hands as much as I steam my clothes. I’m all for new and hip. But, I’m also all for….a crisp pressed uniform. Interestingly, I’m less mad if my hotel room doesn’t have an iron and ironing board than I am if it has a steamer. What can I say? I guess I have a very complicated creative soul.

Boutique hotels are at one end of the spectrum. At the other end are old historic hotels. They are usually quirky in their own right. Trying to fit a modern guest room in an old building can be quite tricky. I’ve been in rooms where I had to shimmy around the furniture because there was barely enough room for the bed. In addition, I’ve stood in showers that were smaller than a public bathroom stall. Mostly, I feel compelled to sleep with lights on in these older hotels. Yessiree. I have the unsettling feeling I’m never quite alone in my room. I was so unnerved when I first walked into my room on my Syracuse layover, I slept with all the lights on. I’ve recently learned I am not the only person that has had these unsettling feelings while staying at this hotel. Yessiree. Several crew members have told me they, too, had an eerie feeling that someone else was checking them out….while they were checking in!

I never sleep with the lights on at our layover hotel in Little Rock. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but, it bares repeating. This hotel has my ultimate creature comfort. Yessiree. The light under the nightstand pops on when it senses my feet moving towards the floor. It is simply genius! Our layover hotel in Charleston also shines brightly with it’s lighting features. Yessiree. There are labeled light switches by the head of both beds that control all the lights in the room…..including the bathroom. Again….genius! I’ll admit. I was smitten by the chandelier in the hotel room. It just oozed southern charm. Even more charming…There was a proper wooden handled umbrella in the armoire for the guest’s use. Never in my 33-years of being a Skytress have I ever had wood-handled umbrella in my hotel closet. Now that’s downright southern hospitality. It would be rude of me not to mention my delectable bed. So I will mention it. The most genteel southern belle would squeal with delight at the sight of this bed. This Montanan gal did, too. My bed was so comfortable I didn’t end up sleeping parallel with the headboard during the night. This may sound odd to you my sweet readers. However, Ron used to joke about me doing this all the time. He was bewildered how I could start off sleeping straight, then end up parallel with the headboard when I woke up. Heck. It bewilders me. However, at this layover hotel, I barely moved an inch. I do declare. It was more Heavenly than the Heavenly beds at the Westin Hotels.

I don’t mean to be vain when I say this….but, I love hotels that have vanity mirrors in the bathroom. I prefer the vanity mirrors that are on the countertop as opposed to the wall mounted mirrors. Admittedly, it’s a small personal preference. In bathrooms with poor lighting I can maneuver the mirror to catch the proper makeup application lighting. The older I get the more I appreciate a good vanity mirror in my hotel room. Especially the magnified side. I’ll admit. My eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be when I was a young Skytress. Heck. Even when I was a young Skytress it wasn’t perfect. But, it was perfect enough to pass my airline’s eye test! Ron also appreciated a good vanity mirror. Once Ron was in St. Louis on a layover. I was in Sarasota. He texted me a picture of the vanity mirror in his hotel room. He really liked it. I laughed and texted him a picture of the vanity mirror in my hotel room. Ron told me he wanted to take his mirror with him. Only that would be stealing. He couldn’t do that. Although, he admittedly took a magnet on several occasions from the Hyatt hotels to use on the refrigerator at home. I surprised Ron with a vanity mirror one day. I told him it might not be the exact style as the one on the bathroom counter on his St. Louis layover. But, it was bought in St. Louis which is practically the same thing!

My criteria for a great layover hotel has changed throughout my Skytress career. Just when I think I have seen it all, I haven’t. Whether that be for the better or for the worse. I’m constantly amending my layover hit and miss lists. I’ll admit. I’ve avoided trips because of layover hotels. Conversely, I’ve bid layovers specifically for the hotels. One constant remains though. I will continue to check out things when I’m checking in. Another constant…..I’ll be sure to report back when a layover hotel exceeds or fails my expectations. Hopefully, there will be more exceptional hotels than awful hotels. But, being I am The Rerouted Skytress, one can never truly know.