Over the River and through the Woods

The holiday season is a time for visiting family at Thanksgiving, having a big to-do, and then turning right around and seeing everyone a month later at Christmas.  Since I'm no longer a student, though, this is more than likely my last substantial Christmas break.  I have no idea where I'll be in a year, but the real world sucks because you only get a couple of days off, and I doubt that I'll be able to visit family like I'm used to doing.

For as long as I can remember, my family always waited to visit family until the day after Christmas.  When I was little and we lived in Ashford, Christmas visits lasted nearly a week.  We would drive north for three hours and spend a couple of days at Nanny's house, drive four hours to see Grandmother and Grandpa in Tennessee, and spend three or four days there before turning around and stopping at Nanny's again for a night.  After moving to Birmingham, though, the tradition changed.  We would go to Nanny's for lunch on Christmas Day, and we would only spend the afternoon there (as opposed to two or three nights in Tennessee).  This year's events have changed everything again, but we still go to Tennessee the day after Christmas, which is where I've been for the past two days.

On Sunday, right after church, my mom, my sister, and I drove up to Tennessee, despite the fact that my mom was panicking about the snow and ice that had occurred the night before (yeah, she's one of THOSE Southerners...I couldn't see the big deal and subsequently annoyed her).  However, we got there perfectly fine, with no incidents besides getting stuck in traffic for half an hour.

There's really nothing to describe because we never do anything besides sit in the house, talk to my grandmother and aunts and uncles, and catch up on the details of everybody's lives.  No baking, no presents, no shopping, etc.  I didn't even have much to contribute to the conversations since I had defended my thesis by Thanksgiving (so they already know about that big event) and my job search is going nowhere (so there are no useful updates).  But it was still nice to see everyone, and I hope it won't be Christmas again before I have time off to make the trip to Tennessee.