Miles to Go

I know in my head that I’m lucky to have so many family members who want to see us, especially at the holidays. But sometimes, it’s overwhelming. Brad and I live an hour drive from our closest “local” family members and a 4 hour drive from the farthest. (The non-local family members are only a phone call or Facetime chat away.)

The problem is, we’re far enough that a trip take pre-planning but close enough not to skip the occasional year. (But we’re too far for certain people to come visit us, so we have to go to them.)

Last year, we traveled 1,000 miles in the course of one week for family events. That’s the allotted mileage for a single month on our lease used up in only a week. Parents want separate celebrations from grandparents/extended family and then there are other events including (but not limited to) work parties, friend parties/visits, choir concerts and church events. Throw in the various holiday errands and the miles, gasoline and stress add up.

What many don’t stop to think about when making plans to host a holiday event, is how much busier we are at the holidays. Brad and I have to try to split holidays somehow between our families and unfortunately I don’t think what we all pretend is a balance actually balances out for the families.

In case you were wondering ,we’re busy every weekend in December. One weekend seems extremely popular, that we had three events scheduled on it.We’re attending one, sending regrets for the second and talked the hostess into rescheduling the third.

I mentioned yesterday that I’d been feeling a little grinchy. I honestly wondered why I bothered putting up our Christmas tree and other decorations this year. We’re barely able to enjoy them and when we are home, we’re often too tired to care about them or have to be vigilant about keeping cats from eating the tree. Heaven only knows what they do to the decorations while we’re at work! And because no one wants to drive to Cleveland, no one is really going to see them except for us.

Because we are in the car so much during the holidays, it’s incredibly important to me that we wake up in our own bed on Christmas morning.

There are so many things about the holiday season that I love. Really there are few complaints I have about this time of year, those complaints are feeling pulled in 100 directions, traveling a ton and cold/flu season.

Three complaint points aren’t too bad. If my little rant has you down, you can read the 10 little things that are awesome about the holidays that I posted yesterday (I could have written more!).

Do you travel a lot for the holidays? How do you balance your schedule this time of year?