Fierce in Seattle: Not Home for the Holidays

Most of you are traveling for the impending holiday season. You are planning your pet sitters, delaying your mail pick up, frantically finishing projects at work to take some time off. Once you are ready to traverse, you have a schedule to follow including a ride to the airport, traffic, 3-ounce containers, oversized carry-on bags, $10 snack packs, germ-infested aisle mates, stale air and the never-ending quest to get there as soon as you can.

Twilight holiday afternoon

Shortly after deplaning, you await your baggage with the rest of the herd where you are then swooped up by Auntie So And So and delivered to your familial destination. Upon arrival, you assist in the final preparations for the meals, the gift exchanges, the recitals, the visits after visits after visits.

By the time the trip has come to an end, you are exhausted with a scratchy throat, some intestinal distress, and you are ruminating over some unsettled squabble with your sister as you settle into your middle seat in Row 26 next to a toddler who has an issue with potty training. Your home and your bed cannot bring comfort to you any sooner.

None of the above sounds fun to me. I have a good relationship with my family in Illinois. It’s so good that they are completely supportive of me not making the trek from Seattle to the bitter cold for a few brief days to run around from here to there and everywhere, trying to see family and friends who already have other plans with their own family and other friends. Instead, I usually travel before or after the holidays anytime I visit anyone anywhere, if I can help it.

I am currently on a short LA vacay and am especially loving today. It’s 78 degrees and unseasonably gorgeous in the San Fernando Valley. The best part? I’m in a living room with a couple of my best girls watching “Eclipse “in the air-conditioning with black-out curtains and candlelight. Happy holidays, indeed.