Holiday Joy

Our family went away for Christmas. We headed west to see my sister and her family and my Mom and her husband, Wes. The journey was fairly uneventful other than some weather/road challenges and a sporadic car sound (which led to a repair in Wisconsin).

However, I wanted to share about a car ride that was pure joy for me. Due to the above car issue, we rode to my Mom’s with my sister. And on the way back from my Mom’s to my sister’s, we (John, Alisa & Chip) were with my sister and her kids (Mary, Emma, Cade, and Jack). Thankfully we were not in a Mazda Miata but a big Yukon (or something like it). Mary and Alisa were in the front engaged in all sorts of conversation. I and the kids were in the back two seats. The first hour went fairly smoothly with each doing their own thing, but after an hour, the tension of close contact with family was leading to arguments, teasing, blaming and telling on each other. I determined that as the lone adult in this chaotic atmosphere, I needed to do something. So we played a few “car games.”

The first game we played had to do with me asking each of the kids a question. They had to respond as quickly as they could. The only catch was that you could not say the sound of the letter R. So instead of “What’s wrong with you:?” “Nothing. I’m just a little tired.” It became, “What’s wong with you?” “Nothing, I’m just a little tied.” This may sound silly and infantile, however, it was also very entertaining to see each child struggle saying words without the letter R. “Whe’e ae we going?” “I’m not sue, but I hope we get the’e soon.”

That lasted for about fifteen minutes before it was clear it was time to move on.

The second game, which I highly recommend with kids, and even adults, is to tell a story together. I would start the story by saying, “Once there was this kid, Jimmy, who loved to play outside. He loved to wander through the woods looking for animals and anything else he could find. But one day, he had an adventure he’d never forget. As he walked deeper into the forest, he heard a noise he’d never heard before, so he turned and much to his surprise saw a . . .” (Next person’s turn). They carry on the story. What stories we told in the back of that Yukon. There was a 12 year old and a 10 year old and a 7 year old and a 6 year old and a 41 year old. We laughed and laughed at the creativity and imagination of these stories unfolding through our different personalities and senses of humor. But like any activity, it gets old and we (I) knew that was taking place when all of our stories began to lead to flying cows causing things to blow up. Plus, we had the added challenge of John. Every time it was his turn, he would end the story no matter if he was the second or tenth person to share . . . “and then the flying cow blew up the forest and flew away. The end.”

These two games were so much more entertaining than whack Uncle Chip in the back of the head until he turns around and tickles us. That was fun for them, but not so fun for me.

All of this reminds me of a simple truth worth stating:

SPEND TIME PLAYING AND INTERACTING WITH YOUR KIDS. KIDS ARE GIFTS. SOON, THEY’LL GROW UP. WHAT JOY THEY BRING. INVEST IN THE KIDS IN YOUR LIFE. SPEND TIME WITH THEM.