Holiday road trip season means packing the car full of luggage, gifts, and road snacks. It means seeing the absolute worst of people, followed closely by the absolute best.
It’s a weird time. But I have rituals from childhood that still stick with me.
The Requirements
Holiday travel is not holiday travel unless I have a pillow and blanket in the back seat.
We must stop at the beginning of the trip for one magazine and one candy bar, both rationed to last the entire journey. Dallas to Los Angeles? You better read and eat slowly.
Travel board games are mandatory. Travel Trouble. Travel Monopoly. Travel Scrabble. Travel Guess Who. The tiny pieces that inevitably end up under the seat, never to be found again.
The Inevitable Breakdown
And finally, something must go wrong with the car in the middle of nowhere.
If I’m not spending Christmas Eve in a mechanic’s shop lobby somewhere between cities, watching a small TV mounted in the corner while my dad talks to a guy named Earl about alternators, then it doesn’t feel like Christmas.
These aren’t complaints. They’re requirements. The hassle is part of the package.
Why These Things Matter
These aren’t just preferences. They’re the architecture of memory.
The pillow that smelled like home. The candy bar you made last 400 miles. The breakdown that became the story everyone tells at dinner for the next twenty years.
Holiday travel isn’t about getting somewhere. It’s about the in-between. The hours in the car where nothing happens except being together.
What We’re Really After
Every holiday road trip is a time machine. You’re not just driving to grandma’s house. You’re driving back to every other trip that came before. The same jokes. The same snacks. The same pit stops.
Kids don’t know they’re building memories. They just think they’re bored in a car. But twenty years later, that boredom turns into nostalgia. The in-between becomes the whole point.
The fights about the radio become inside jokes. The wrong turns become legendary stories. The hours of nothing become the glue that holds families together.
Creating Your Own Rituals
If you don’t have traditions from childhood, make new ones. Pick a snack that’s only for road trips. Choose a playlist that only plays between cities. Invent a game that only exists in the car.
The rituals aren’t arbitrary. They’re what turn a trip into a tradition. They’re what your kids will remember when they’re making their own journeys.
The destination is just the excuse. The road is the actual gift.
This is the lens the Bible is meant to be read through.
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