I'll Be Home For Christmas

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This weekend I get my two best Christmas presents: Virginia flies in

from Amsterdam today and Spencer arrives from Norfolk tomorrow. Hopefully, their flights will

go smoothly and traffic to and from Boston won’t be too bad. 

Thanksgiving is apparently THE biggest travel period in the US, but Christmas is a close second,

and extends throughout the Americas, Europe, and significant parts of Asia and Africa. That’s a

LOT of people on the move! 

The one time I’ve flown to get someplace FOR Christmas was the year Ross passed away, when

we decided to escape to Hawai’i. Everything went smoothly, and thanks to the fact Spencer was

an active-duty service member, we got to crash in the Bob Hope lounge at LAX, along with

roughly 50% of the rest of the armed forces of the US. 

The rest of my holiday travel has always been by car, and there have been some adventures. When

I was a teen, we lived in Syracuse and went across eastern NY state every Christmas day to gather

at my grandmother’s. Even as a self-absorbed kid, I recall the year it was snowing and blowing

every inch of the way, with my dad white-knuckled on the steering wheel and my mom searching

the map for anyplace we might stay if we had to abandon the Thruway. And these trips took place

BEFORE 24-hour gas stations and always-open mom-and-pop stores.

Then there was the time Ross and I, new parents, were meeting his dad at the Trapp Family Lodge

in Vermont. What could be more perfectly Christmas? Again, the weather in the Northeast wasn’t

cooperative, and this time it was my husband clenching the wheel while I kept my eyes on the

map. It took us at least twice as long as we had planned, and starving, we pulled through a Burger

King drive-in. What a great opportunity to give fifteen-month-old Victoria her very first french

fries! (We were not ordinarily fast food people.) 

Whether it was the grease, or the processed potato, or just the swaying of the Bronco as we were

buffeted by the wind, but as we crawled up the road to the resort, the baby threw up

EVERYTHING. On her cute outfit. On her car seat. On the car’s BACK seat. Merry Christmas,

Granddad!

How about you, Reds? Any memorable holiday season travels?

 

RHYS BOWEN: When I was a small child we drove to my grandmother’s house every Christmas

Eve, buying the tree along the way and strapping it to the roof of the car. I don’t know how we

managed to bring four of us, presents and a tree in a small British car, but we did. Then we’d

decorate the tree that evening and we kids would go to bed, full of excitement. Christmas Day

was always simple but lovely: opening gits, big breakfast, church in morning then mid afternoon

turkey dinner, Queen’s speech and lazy evening.

My one dramatic Christmas was when I was chatting with a friend who is German and who

lamented the commercialism of Christmas in America. We decided to rent a house up at Lake

Tahoe in the snow (at great expense).  We arrived. It was perfect, Christmas card scene in the

mountains. Then… she came down with the worst cold ever, she had forgotten to bring the

cookies she had baked. She went to bed, leaving all the cooking etc to me.  The first morning

we went skiing… Lovely, until it started to snow, then blizzard. Jane and Andrew, up on the

black diamond slopes, had to be brought down. Then the snow turned to rain and it rained

solidly for the rest of the time we were up there.  No TV. Pouring rain. Everyone tired of board

games.  Not the best memory!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Christmas for me, growing up, was low key and at home. Our tradition, if

we had any, was to buy a tree on the night BEFORE the night before Christmas. Me and my 3

sisters piled into the car for the cruise up and down Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards,

stopping at the Christmas tree lots on the edges of parking lots (before every spare corner of

Los Angeles was built upon). 

We’d stake out our favorite tree, my father would negotiate, and then strap it to the roof of our car.

It was always enormous, despite my mother’s desperate pleas for “something small  this year.”

Invariably my father had to cut the top off before he could wrestle it through the front door and

into our 2-story front hall where it would stand until the day after New Year when my mother

would dismantle it.

We’d decorate it Christmas eve. And come down to it lit up on Christmas morning with gifts

piled high around it. Our Christmas was all about the food and the gifts and Santa Claus and

Christmas carols. 

I’d never lit a Hanukah candle until I married Jerry, and that’s when I stopped having a tree.

It was just about the only thing on which we did not see eye to eye, but it just never mattered

that much to me, and though he wasn’t religious, it mattered to him. You learn to pick your

battles.

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I have only two semi-disastrous memories. One, I was driving home to New

Jersey from my grad program at UT Knoxville. I had my two cats in a big old Ford Falcon station

wagon, along with a woman passenger who wanted a ride. The weather was horrendous, icy and

snowy and scary. We fishtailed our way north with the cats scraping frantically at the back window

. I’m lucky to have survived that one!

Another was also a trip from Tennessee to NJ, this time on a Greyhound bus. I believe it was an

overnight trip sitting up, with a very drunk man in front of us who wanted the whole bus to sing

Christmas carols. “Come on people, let’s sing!” he shouted through most of the trip. Not to be

repeated!

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Holiday travel? Well, hmm, what I can remember was the time in

college when instead of driving back to school in January after Christmas vacation, my boyfriend

and I decided to drive to New York. Just for fun. (My college was in Ohio, and his in Indiana.) As

we got into Sam’s car, my mom said “Safe travels back to school!” 

And I said, “Oh Mom, we are actually going to New York!”

And she said, “sure you are, have fun.”

 

She thought we were kidding.

 

We weren’t.

 

We drove ALL the way to New York, a trip about which I have zero memories (except learning

that Ohio and Pennsylvania are huge,) walked around in the snow in the city and looked at

decorations, stayed at some hotel, NO idea, and then drove back. I missed two days of classes,

and told the dean it was for personal reasons, and looked sad.

She did not pursue it, and all was fine.

Is that a holiday story, or what?

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am again the boring one here, but maybe that is not a bad thing!

Growing up, Christmas was always at our house, no traveling involved. Then when I was in my

late teens and early twenties, we had a few Christmases in the house my parents owned at the

time outside of Guadalajara. December in that part of Mexico is lovely, as are the Mexican

Christmas traditions. My only disappointment was not having a Christmas tree, but there was an

atrium in the center of the house and my mom and I strung colored lights on the plants and up the

stair rail, so all was fine. 

It occurs to me that the Christmas I lived in England is a complete blank in my memory, other

than that I was terribly homesick.

JENN McKINLAY: My favorite holidays are the traveling ones. We're a beachie peoples and usually meet our east coast fam in Florida or California for a beach Christmas every few years just to break up the same old same old. The only disaster to date was when six month old Hooligan 2 got a righteous case of croup in Daytona and began barking in the middle of the night. A steamy bathroom didn't calm his cough, so in full panic mode we ended up with six burly fireman (there's a rule that they have to be hot, isn't there?) taking care of our wee man and then having baby and me go in an ambulance to the hospital just in case. It was my first and only ride in an ambulance and I'd like to keep it that way. That was our first night on the trip and from there on out it was smooth sailing...phew.

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your holiday travel memories?

Over the River and Through the Woods... We Hope

Congratulations to MAREN, winner of a copy of Maddie Day's DEADLY CRUSH! (Maren, contact Edith@Edithmaxwell.com to tell her where to send your book.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It’s five days before Thanksgiving, and while some of us are polishing silver and calculating how many pounds of turkey per guest, many of us are checking the oil or packing our carry-ons in anticipation of the dreaded Journey to Thanksgiving. 

Obviously, it’s not always dreaded. When we got out of the Army and moved back to my mom’s native New York, we always spent the holiday at my Aunt and Uncle’s home outside Utica. It was about an hours’ drive, literally over the river and through the woods, and even in the upstate NY snow belt, it wasn’t usually coming down too hard at the end of November. At the conclusion of the trip, the promise of good food and wine (for the adults) and visiting the neighbor's horses (for the kids) was well worth the effort. 

 

Moving to DC for grad school threw a wrench into that easy jaunt. I had to fly if I was going to make it home and still get back to class the next Monday. This was the dawn of low-fare airlines in the US, and I spent one miserable day-before-Thanksgiving trying to bushwhack my way through the transportation system with my new-ish boyfriend, a law student named Ross Hugo-Vidal. 

 

We took the MARC train from Washington to BWI Airport for our flight on People's Express (anyone remember them?) But, alas, it was one of those years when it was snowing like mad in Syracuse, and we got stuck in the brand-new Newark airport. The People's Express terminal was still unfinished, and had no chairs. We spent hours alternating sitting on our luggage, and on the chilly floor. There were no cell phones in those days, children, so we had to make regular visits to the help desk to beg for news. 

 

Eventually, we were herded onto a plane bound for Rochester (where it was also snowing.) Only an hour and twenty minutes away from home! Except by the time we arrived, it was close to midnight, all the services were shutting down, and the weather was worsening. We split up - I stood in line to get a hotel voucher from the airline's customer service, and Ross ran to the Avis desk and rented one of the last cars available.

 

The next morning, the storm had passed and he drove us to my folk's place. My mom always said take a challenging trip with someone you're serious about; it shows if they have the right stuff to be a good partner. It did, and he was, and I married him eighteen months later.

 

 

As parents ourselves, we fell into a three-year rhythm: One year hosting, the second with local friends, and the third trekking down to DC to join the family there. I just checked with Google Maps, and it tells me the average driving time between my house and my sister's is 8 hours 40 minutes to 11 hours 50 minutes. Friends, this is a foul lie. We never made the drive in less than 13 hours, and on several occasions it took up to 16 hours.  

There was the year it rained so torrentially in the Philadelphia area the NJ Turnpike closed down and we had to figure out how to navigate local surface roads, via maps and following the unending stream of traffic. Did I mention the NJ streets were also flooding?

 

There were two separate occasions of an overwrought teen leaping out of the car at a stop and refusing to get back in. There was the time we were staying at a hotel instead of at Barb's and while trying to navigate there, I accidentally drove through the Pentagon parking lot. Late at night. The Pentagon police who stopped me were very sweet.

There was a year when there was a cattle truck accident on Interstate 95, and the traffic was so backed up we didn't arrive in Northampton, to drop Victoria at her college, until 3am. We spent $250 for a hotel room we used for five hours. 

This Thanksgiving, I'm journeying again to DC, but this time, solo, and flying (something financially out of reach for a family of five.) I'm also hedging my bets by leaving on Tuesday morning and returning on Friday night. I look forward to smiling down at the traffic along the way. Unless, of course, there's snow...

Dear readers, what are your memorable Thanksgiving journeys?