It’s perfectly fine that the vehicle’s main role during the holidays is helping us get to where we want to be, like with our families, or extremely far away from our families where there is also a good beach. 

We don’t need to start stringing lights on every Ford Taurus, or going with eggnog-flavoured 5W30 engine oil over the holidays.

That would be forcing it if you ask me — like attaching fake antlers to a cat.

Like everybody, my most vivid memories of driving to a family Christmas event occurred when I was a kid, when Christmas was feverishly crucial.    

Unfortunately the drives that stick out the most were the long ones to my uncle’s farm up north.

Back then I routinely got car sick, so I remember a few times standing beside the car in the snow on some back road, in full puke mode. Hey, not every memory has to be a stupendously good one. The important thing is that they’re memorable enough to lodge in your memory for the long haul.    

Christmas Eve 17 years ago, when our daughter was just a year old, we stayed overnight at my mother’s home, the ancestral bungalow in the suburbs. As usual, the kid refused to go to sleep at the appointed time — a habit she manages to maintain to this day. When she was still screaming well past midnight, I did what all fathers do under such circumstances — buckled her into the car seat, and drove around aimlessly until she fell asleep.

Driving around my old hometown, in the dead quiet of Christmas night, decorations and lights everywhere, daughter in the back slowly falling asleep, well … it wasn’t the worst half hour I ever spent behind the wheel.

These days we have to make a relatively short run on Christmas Eve, about an hour door to door.   
 
Simple, right? And with no chance of vomit?

Well, thankfully nausea is no longer in the picture, but things are far from simple. Trying not to forget and pack every present, trying to leave on time with four people with four different agendas, and trying to properly secure a broccoli casserole and Greek salad somewhere in the cargo area, is exhaustive and tricky stuff.

But that’s precisely why there is such euphoria when we’re finally on our way. Nothing left to do but enjoy the ride, hope there is no Feta cheese disaster in the trunk, and look forward to the festivities that will soon unfold.