Home For The Holidays

Ten hours trapped in a car with nothing but highway ahead of us is how we’re beginning our holiday celebration.  I’m heading to my home state to visit friends and family.  With nearly two weeks off this holiday season, I first planned on my son and I enjoying an extended visit. 

In typical fashion, having to work around everyone’s schedule has morphed it into a shorter five day visit with my two daughters making the return trek.

I nearly fell out of bed when Mr. Hyde announced he was going with us.  His parents and brothers live only two miles away so we see them often, but it’s a major ordeal to visit my family; one which he usually avoids like the plague.  We have to travel through three states and it can take as long as 12 hours depending on traffic and construction. 

He said it’s important to me so he’ll make the trip with us.  He has to get back earlier for work and we have to board our dog so he can join us, but it’s all in the spirit of family togetherness, right?

It’s all that togetherness I’m most worried about.  20 plus hours in a small vehicle is a very long time.  And when my 16 year old daughter joins us for the long haul home, I’m worried we’ll have a major blowout; and I’m not talking about the tires.  Mr. Hyde and Oldest Daughter do NOT get along... she is a teenage girl with an attitude and he demands unquestioning respect.  You get the picture.  Thoughts of the five of us crammed into a small car for 12 hours have been giving me haunting nightmares.

Even assuming we survive the drive, Oldest Daughter is then staying an additional week or so at our house.  Since she moved here in August and then promptly moved back to her Dad’s by the end of September, I’m sure the visit won’t go well.  When she left in September, Mr. Hyde ranted and raved about how she had used us and she was not welcome here again.