I’m from an American family where holidays are very important. Like, biblically important. Despite living on (and perpetually traveling around) an entirely different continent than the rest of my family, I honestly cannot imagine not coming home for the holidays.
I’m not sure what it would look like – but it wouldn’t be pretty.
The joys of coming home for the holidays are twofold. First off, I can rest easy knowing my mother won’t begin the process of disowning me in the new year. Secondly (and more importantly,) I get the chance to be home with the people I love. It’s hard to keep in touch when I’m away! But coming home often also elicits the oft-asked question of what the heck I’m supposed to do with all this downtime?
Here’s a list of things I generally do when I’m home for a prolonged amount of time in between travels. No promises they’ll work for you, and I can’t say I’m proud of all of them. But they all kind of average out to a mildly productive holiday break.
1. Download, edit and upload photos
I take approximately four million pictures per trip (roughly) and then they take up space on my memory cards for up to months thereafter. I guard those little gigs like precious rings, but it takes me a while to muster up the energy to truly sort through them, edit them and then create Flickr sets or Facebook albums or whatever. Being home is a great time to do this, plus it’s a nice segue into sharing pictures with family and friends.
2. Watch obscene amounts of television
Besides Barcelona football matches in bars, I rarely (if ever) watch television while I’m away from home. So when I make my epic return to the epic flat screen at my mom’s place, I somehow turn into a total TV junkie. I am frankly blown away by how easy it is to waste incredible amounts of time in front of a television. And I am totally not better than that.
3. Hang out with my grandma
My grandma is awesome, and I really do miss her when I’m away. Plus, she’s definitely the matriarch of our family, meaning that quality time with her goes along way to reestablish my cred in the family. So I am open to all manner of help she may need around the house, which often comes with pea soup and a genuine feeing of love and warmth that kind of makes me never want to leave.
4. Bake
I love to bake, but it’s a luxury (in terms of time, money and space) i really can’t afford while on the road. So when I’m home for the holidays (a perfect excuse to bake if there ever was one,) I really go to town. Chocolate chip cookies, apple pies, and French macarons are suddenly cooling on every available surface space of my mother’s house. Plus then I have all these great gifts to give for Christmas, which serves as an excuse to visit old friends and also saves me from eating my way into a bigger pants size before I leave again.
5. Plan my next trip
Nothing like being stagnant for weeks at a time to motive a chronic under-planner to start breaking out the guide books and maps. I create wildly ambitious future plans for myself for the first half of my stint home, and then spend the second half paring them down into realistic adventures. It’s awesome to have the time to plan like that, and usually means my first trip back on the road is the best planned of all.
Photo Credit: John-Morgan