Here to Stay is a New Bird

I never intended to be part of a family that traveled for Christmas. It is a well-known and certifiable fact that very few of my intentions and visions for the way my life would progress have come to pass. Per se.

Perhaps my expectations stem from the way my mother's life panned out differently than mine. Though they had grown up forty miles from each other in Maryland, she met her husband at her small-town college in North Carolina. Thus, as a child, I saw both families at every holiday without ever having to travel. I woke up in my own bed every Christmas morning. I was vaguely aware that others handled it differently, but it never occurred to me that there was any reason for that other than preference. That the people who travel for Christmas would want it to be different had never entered my mind. It's starting to now.

Despite enrolling in a small-town Carolina school and becoming engaged to a small-town Indiana boy, marriage at 21 was not meant to be my happily ever after. Mom married her college athlete and sweetheart and graduated pregnant with me at 22. I graduated a month shy of 21 with a fiance overseas who everyone knew I was never going to marry. Everyone but me.

The following snowy February left me with a roadmap reevaluation and few answers. What now? So finally, four Christmases after the one that broke my heart, I am starting to see where I am going instead. Which is, apparently, to New England. At 25, my mother had two babies. At 25, I am a newlywed on the pill. I have still not reconciled my expectations to my reality, however happy it is. But, after last night, I have learned something about families who travel at Christmas.

Mainly, they probably do not provide their coworkers with a variety of cookies in cute holiday tins. This is the first year I have not baked and wrapped and sprinkled and given the week before Christmas. Instead, last night, I did laundry like a person possessed, picked up dry cleaning, and sent my gracious husband to Petsmart for a travel sedative and to Walmart for tampons. In preparation for the week of impromptu high school reunions that always manages to constitute our trips to Connecticut, I made time to get my hair highlighted. Finally, my new blonder bangs falling in my eyes, I stared at a bed full of clothing with nothing to wear.

"I'm sorry to be throwing all of this at you at once," The Boy said, reading our commitments to me off a crumpled piece of paper, "but I have never been this overwhelmed."

I reminded him that this night paled in comparison to the ones leading up to our wedding, but remembered that he had spent those nights texting me from bars and hotels with his pals while my overworked bridesmaids and I maniacally tried to scrape together some semblance of a proper wedding. I was happy for him in retrospect, jealous of him at the time.

We discussed the best way to handle family conflicts, anticipated awkward confrontations, and I nervously penned a conflicted and carefully worded e-mail to The Boy's former love regarding our inevitable presence at the same functions.

I bathed our confused Puggle at midnight and slumped on the wet tile while drying him with a hairdryer so that he wouldn't go to bed shivering and wet.

The presents are wrapped and ready to go, but they are not decked out with ribbons or bows the way they have been in previous years. No one is receiving cookies. We will be staying at my brother-in-law's new condo that he has not had time to move into. We are bringing toilet paper and hand soap, an air mattress and towels. We are probably forgetting everything.

We gathered the dog's blankets and toys, treats and medicine, food and bowls, wondering how he would fit in the car. We pictured him perched precariously atop blanket-covered luggage on the backseat.

As we finally prepared to go to bed, The Boy asked, "How do people with kids do this?" I had been wondering the same thing all night. Initially, this question left me longing for more years of careful child prevention.

"We better hurry up and have kids," The Boy said thoughtfully, "So we can make sure we are the first and everyone will visit us for the holidays."

We are still not sure if the dog and the pillows can both make the trip to New England. Suddenly guest room preparations and grocery shopping don't seem like such a terrible fate.