I have to admit when I woke up yesterday I was dreading the seven flights we had lined up.

I was exhausted, pretty miserable, and under the impression that taking seven flights in a single day was physically impossible. Things looked bad early, but when we landed in St. Louis, we were greeted by a FareCompare angel named Mary.

She flew out from Dallas just to meet us, bringing real food for lunch, some fresh clothes, and delicious Ghiradelli chocolate (you can make that check payable to “cash,” Ghiradelli).

Mary’s visit really brightened things up as I headed out on the remaining flights. It turns out if all seven flights are only about an hour each, so, it’s not really that bad. I can’t believe I just said that.

Then, things took a turn for the worse….

The Grumpy Santa Tour of America is certainly no picnic for our erstwhile Christmas icon — 66 flights, 48 states, 12 days — enough said …

We expected a few glitches and for our normally cheery Santa to get a bit — well … grumpy from time to time — and he delivered.

Now my job is to keep Grumpy cooking — make his life as easy as possible — and reroute his 44 reservations based on what is happening on the ground in real-time — I personally haven’t gotten much sleep and was getting a bit — surly.

But the ELF and I had to perk Grumpy up with with a short Skype Video Chat in the Detroit Airport (I was able to upgrade them to First Class and it was 90 minutes not 30 as Grumpy has some time zone issues).

My 7 year old daughter got into the act — she was at first frightened by our 6′ 7″ ELF, but warmed up as soon as she thought “Santa’s Helper” might deliver some goods …