I trust that most of you have gotten over your Triptophan comas and are now happily settled back home or at work after a couple of grueling (um, I mean joyful), days with family.
I know, I know. We should all be grateful for this time off, for precious moments with kin whom we see but once a year. Yes, let us for a moment celebrate a few of the joys of being with family: the caterwauling herds of children, the alcoholic in-laws, the agonizing small-talk…and of course, everyone has an Uncle Alfred who does that chopped off finger trick, even though we are in our thirties and we’ve seen it fourteen thousand times. This is not my family, of course, but more of a mélange of our collective family experience across the country.
Which brings us to a very interesting question. Is there a way to make it all tolerable? As a matter of fact, says Erik Torkells over at Budget Travel, there is.
This is actually quite brilliant, and I salute Herr Torkells for having the courage to say in print what many of us can only write in our journals or in blog form: that family-based holiday travel has its ups and downs. Sure, if you’re lucky enough to be skiing in Vail for the holiday, you’ve got serious options on how to make fun use of increasingly rare time off. But what about those long days and eves hanging with family and others in warm, cozy (and often boring) homes?
Torkells makes several recommendations in this piece over at BT, including things like “Get your own space” by which he means, where possible, get a hotel room that you can retreat to if necessary (which is a bit dubious…I mean, if you find sitting alone in a hotel room more enjoyable than being with family, well, I’ve got the number of someone you can call to talk about it). But perhaps the best idea is: Take some personal projects. For me, this means writing a journal. I’ve kept one since I was 16, but don’t often find time to write in it. But vacation time is a perfect time to scribble down thoughts and events about your life, stuff you NOW you’ll be glad you committed to “paper” in years to come.
One thing I’d add to Torkells’ list (and I don’t mean to be a shill for Apple), but I suggest too you load up your ipod with audio books and/or videos, and when there is a dull moment, find yourself a little nook to enjoy your own personal entertainment system. It’s worked for me!