Merry Christmas, Las Vegas.

Christmas is pictured as cozy time at home spent with the family.  Carolers outside your door, Christmas lights illuminating the street.   At this time on Christmas eve, some families may be opening their first gift.  Some are leaving cookies and milk out for Santa.  The little ones are being tucked in as visions of  dancing sugar-plums will prove that this generation of children is delusional.

My experience may be just a little different.  This Christmas eve, my magical night is spent in the Encore hotel and casino overlooking the Wynn in the spirited town of Las Vegas.  That’s right, I’m spending Christmas in Vegas with my parents!

The check-in at the Encore.

The reflection through my window and the Wynn hotel outside.

View from my window on the 61st floor.

I like to tell people about these plans because everyone will think that I am so cool for being in Vegas for Christmas with my party-animal parents.  I’m like “Yeah, I know right?  So Awesome!”, but on the inside I’m thinking “what on EARTH am I going to do with my PARENTS in VEGAS for 4 DAYS…?”  Today, the journey began…

My parents apparently had some great deal to spend 3 nights in the Encore.  The problem is that my mom had to work on New Year’s eve, so my parents came up with the efficient plan of having me and my dad drive together to Vegas and having my mom fly in and meet us after work.  My mom would arrive in Vegas at 9:30 and my father and I would arrive at 11 am to get our room at the hotel.  Wait…11 am?  Daddy wants to leave at 6 or 7 in the morning to “get an upgrade” on our room somehow.  First thought: omg so early.  Second thought: what are Daddy and I going to do in Vegas together for 10 HOURS?  Well, luckily, we left at 7:45 so I could in sleep SO much longer.  Then we headed out on our trek.  Actually, first we locked the doors, then double checked them, then forgot something in the house, opened the door, then locked the door, then double checked it, then Mommy needed us to grab something for her…etc.  Then we were on our way!

Four and a half hour car ride, 9 hours hanging out in Vegas.  Dad and daughter time.  We stopped by Starbucks on the way together, talked about evolution and music and God together, checked into our hotel together, gambled together, ate dinner at KFC together (they ran out of chicken…what?), drove by pictures of half-naked women (and men) everywhere together, picked up Mommy from the airport together.  In the hotel room, my dad set up his electronic chess set and I took a 2 hour nap.  My dad’s been playing chess on that thing nonstop for the last few days since he played some random guy in a mall food court.  After dinner, my dad pretty much forced me gamble and I lost $10.  I warned him that I wasn’t very lucky.

Airport, round 2.  We get to the parking lot pretty smoothly .  On the way to my mom’s gate, my dad stops 3 different employees to ask them where we should be going.  My mom’s flight comes early, and she comes walking in linking arms and chatting it up with some random Korean woman that she made a friends with on the plane somehow.  My mom was wearing white shoes that are made without shoelaces, and the Korean woman had asked my mom if she broke her leg.  I guess her shoes looked like two casts.  We offered her a ride to the MGM but she insisted on taking a taxi.  That was that.

Now, it is 11:00 at night, and I’m blogging in my hotel room while my parents “walk around,” a.k.a. use the slot machines.  Let’s pray that we have enough money for gas on the way home.

Disclaimer: My parents are not addicted gamblers or anything.  And, as my dad would put it, I might as well “kill two pterodactyls with one lava rock” and tell you that the talk with my dad on the way over was good!  He had been pondering the church message we heard last sunday.  The thing he doesn’t quite grasp the concept that Christ paid for our sins, and to tell you the truth, it’s something I always need to examine more and understand as well.  Praying .

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