Air Conditioning - I think I broke my a/c!

I have a Carrier central a/c unit that is a little over a year old. In a fit of cleaning before Christmas, I turned off the unit (using the thermostat), removed the filter and cleaned it, as it had been a few months (bad me, I know). After the filter dried, I replaced it but didn't turn the unit back on b/c the house was still cool. Got home last night and tried to turn on the unit and it won't turn on. We have an electric thermostat that, when on, tells us the temperature in the house and even putting it on "on" or "auto" we're not seeing the temperature. Checked the breakers and that's not the problem. Left the thermostat to "on" overnight to see if it would eventually turn on but it still hasn't. I can't figure out what could've gone wrong in turning the unit off to clean the filer so I'm turning to all of you as you all are extremely knowledgeable. I'm willing to have a pro come out and check the unit but wouldn't mind hearing some suggestions as it is Christmas and it will no doubt take forever to get someone in here to check. I'm in Miami and it is supposed to be muggy and 80 today so any advice is much appreciated!

If you had to remove the blower door to get to the filter, make sure the door is replaced properly & fully closed. Many air handlers have a switch which is operated by the blower door. If the door is not fully closed the unit will not work.

Merry Christmas.

I agree with Grady, make sure the furnace/air handler door is all in place.

I can't imagin Christmas with A/C! lol We got the fireplace going! :-)

Thanks for responding on Christmas day! I spoke to my father who suggested that it may just be the thermostat and while I doubted that, out of frustration (it was getting really warm in the house, that's Miami for you!) I sort of shoved (angrily) my thermostat and lo and behold, it turned on and the a/c started working! We're replacing the thermostat with a programmable one so when we do that, we'll take a look at the wires and see if there's any problem there. Thanks again for your help.

I was thinking the blower door switch as well... The other thing is if the air handler was off for a while, the battery back up takes over and drains battery power from the stat, and they may need replacing...