CHO is a decent base for qol and flying. I'm based here and we have 2 planes, so you can do uni-ted and iad + hpn turns or US Air LGA turns. Each equals about 4 on, 4 off; days or nights your choice. We have 7 lines and only 5 FO's, so we are gettig worked over pretty good lately. THe only bad part about CHO is the proximity to the puzzle pallace in HEF. We do a lot of repo flights at night because we are so close. It's not a bad gig. ORF would be better, but CHO is a solid base and it won't be going anywhere for a while. My 2 cents

I'm not sure what you guys going to class were told, but i was in class last christmas at colgan, and they gave us a week off, with very little notice. Plan to go home at christmas. THey will fly you to your home of record, so make sure you tell them your home of record is wherever you plan on spending christmas. YOu can always go back and change it later.