Merry Christmas

Holiday Traffic
Originally uploaded by erickpineda527.

Every year I find the trek to Charleston to see family over the Christmas holidays to be too stressing and taxing on me. Besides the frenetic schedules and constant driving, there's always the issues of how much time to "allot" to each family. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so we do what we can.

This year was exceptionally quiet. My father is anticipating surgeries in the next couple of months and my mother is also having her complications associated with getting older. Everyone is I guess. They didn't even bother with putting up a tree this year because of all the work involved.

We started out trip staying with El's family and had dinner, opened presents and then went to bed. We skipped Midnight Mass this year. I was too wiped out from the drive to make it. It was the first time in how many years since I was little that we didn't go. I opted for bed. THe next morning we got up had brunch with her family and proceeded to my family's place.

We had lunch, chatted and opened more presents and unexpectedly I crashed out AGAIN. After snoozing on the couch for half an hour I woke up and it was time for dinner. Geez. We ate and went back to El's place. We hung out with her relatives and then went back to bed.

This year has been mentally and physically straining on El and I. Besides our regular day to day we also had to manage our fledgling catering business and cope with three back to back to back hurricanes. We barely have any time to ourselves and just relax. Next year I'll do better to make it different.

Back to Christmas...

I got sick. Ear infection, fever, etc. Couldn't sleep very well which made me very tired and irritable on the way back to Florida. And to boot there was another accident on I-95 which made our 6 hour trip into a 9 hour trip. It never fails during a holiday.

We got home late and fatigued. I felt bad for El who I know was tired, but I couldn't do anything. She had to unload most of the baggage. I just wanted to eat, bundle up and go to bed.

Today I decided to tough it out and go to work since I had alot of loose ends. Plus, El's relatives are here in Orlando today and may come by the house. Oh and El's birthday party is on New Year's Eve and I've still got a lot to do. I love this time of year.