By Diane Rose
To ski or not to ski... that was our dilemma. Although the resorts of Europe beckoned on our doorstep, a dollar rate nudging two to the pound made the lure of far-flung America hard to resist.
However, with only eight days to spare, Colorado resorts seemed a transfer too far. So we plumped for the closer, but less-fashionable East Coast for a chance to ski off excess pounds on the slopes and start the New Year on a distinctly healthy note. Perfect.
We booked with Virgin and as Upper Class passengers immediately left our stress at the door of the executive lounge, which features a fabulous spa offering a range of treatments to get you relaxed and in the holiday mood.
The Upper Class experience continued on board with champagne on tap, personal in flight entertainment in cubicle style seats that fold out into beds, and an on-board therapist to soothe away those last minute pre-holiday stresses.
My daughter opted for a hand treatment while I chose a relaxing back massage to break up the seven-and-a-half-hour flight into Boston.
Emerging from the flight relaxed and rejuvenated, we negotiated our way out of the airport and through Boston's system of underpasses with relative ease, and after a leisurely two-hour drive through some of the picture postcard towns that make up New England, we arrived in the resort of Killington, Vermont. Perfect.
The hire car came with a SatNav, so no tense 'domestics' over map-reading skills (or my lack of, to be precise) and the children slept all the way in the car. Perfect again.
We had booked a family studio at the Killington Grand Resort, the only hotel with ski-in and ski-out access - a must with young children.
Just on cue, the weather had dumped 12ins of fresh snow just before we arrived so the conditions were... well, just about perfect. A paradise for powder hounds.