Christmas on the Road

Dear Jack,

There will come a year, not too long in the future, when the annual Christmas roadtrip will be exciting to you. You will remember all of these people who love you so much from the last visit you had with them. You will understand how Christmas often equates to gift giving, which means new toys for you. You will be able to do things like play a DS in the car and won't have a car seat with its uncomfortable (and yet very secure) five point harness.

But that year is not this year.

This year is your toddler Christmas and there's a lot to be enjoyed there, but the newness of people you may or may not know you know and the frequent transition of visiting so many relations, and the unhappiness of being trapped in a car seat for four or more hours only to get to a city so large that it takes thirty minutes or more to get to a particular location in it, these are not the enjoyable moments.

So what did you enjoy this year?

You enjoyed being snuggled with Grandma after the indignity of having your mother wash peppermint out of your hair. Which reminds me, you also liked eating peppermint. And you enjoyed the interesting feeling of having it stick to your hair. For a while at least.

You enjoyed laying on the hammock at Grandma and Grandpa Nolen's house in El Campo. Until the hammock turned on you and threw you to the ground.

You enjoyed letting Grandpa comfort you after you took a tumble off of the hammock. (You did try the hammock again one more time, but after the second betrayal you would have nothing more to do with it).

I'm not sure you enjoyed the series of group shots I made you take at each location.

But you did enjoy opening presents at Nana's house and getting to play dress up with all of your new dress up clothes. You will enjoy even more when you are much older that you can now play dress up with police and doctor and firefighter uniforms and not your sister's princess dresses.

You did not enjoy the hotel room. "Bye!" "Bye!" You pretty much cried every moment that you weren't asleep in the room.

But you loved the hotel lobby with it's stairs, wide open spaces, and carbolicious breakfast selection.

You enjoyed opening gifts again with Aunt Dani, Aunt Kathi, PawPaw Hayes, Lillia and Myles. You especially enjoyed that your sister was willing to share her new gifts with you.

You did not enjoy the long drive to get to the zoo.

But once we were there, you loved looking at the fish, especially with your Gram.

In fact, I think you just liked spending time with Gram in general this visit.

Over at Grandma house, you enjoyed more present opening -- you are now a pro -- and all of the cookies and crackers she had for you. You also enjoyed being tickled by your silly grandma.

Overall, you enjoyed most of what we did. But I want you to know that ALL of that, ALL of those people we saw and ALL of the things we did, we did in 48 hours.

And we did it that way for you.

After almost a week in Houston with you at November, we just understood that you are, at least at this age, a homebody. One night away from your own bed was almost too much as it was, and any more would have certainly crossed the line.

So I'm glad we did this whirlwind trip taking Christmas on the road. You got to see all of the people who love you so much in Houston and still got to be home the next day to be in your comfort zone.

And I get the rest of this week to enjoy the time with you and your toddler Christmas experience. See, everybody wins.

Love,
Mom