My best friend, a single mother of two, travels from Texas to Florida at least twice a year to visit her mother. This is a 20-hour car trip, and she usually drives straight through. If I were her, somewhere around Mississippi my holiday spirit would get tossed out the window.
Many families travel at Christmastime, and my own dear brood has made the long trek from the Texas plains to the Emerald Coast many a summer. What helps me keep my sanity (if, indeed, it is kept)? Well, some good tunes, a journal, and most importantly, occupied kids. Though we haven’t yet purchased a portable DVD player, I’m sure we will soon. But , technology aside, there are other methods of entertainment. When I was a child, lying in the back window (eek!) of our Rambler, my brother and I played road trip games for hours. Mom introduced them, then turned up the radio and left us to our fun.
Alphabet Game: Do you remember this one? Starting with “A”, find all the letters of the alphabet on signs before your sibling does.
Paper, Rock, Scissors: This was a good game to decide who got to go first in the next game. (Isn’t childhood grand?) It’s simple: a fist is a rock, forefinger and middle finger outstretched are scissors, and a flat palm is paper. Everyone makes a fist and counts, “One, two, three!” before making rock, paper, or scissors with their hand. Here’s the hierarchy: rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, paper beats rock. Who could ask for more?
Catagories: First you have to get the rhythm going. It’s a simple one, two beat. Say, “Let’s play (pause, pause) categories (pause, pause) start with (pause, pause) animals (for example)”. Keeping the rhythm going by clapping your knees and hands in beats of two, each player must name an animal without missing a beat. Johnny says “turkey” (pause, pause), Susie says “ostrich”, (pause, pause), Johnny says “leopard”, and so on and so on until the beat is broken. The winner chooses the next category.
Stories: This game creates some outlandish tales, and you’ll have a lot of fun listening to the whoppers your kids can come up with! Player one starts a story, for example, “Once upon a time, an evil king with purple hair and garlic breath ruled the world, and his favorite food was…” Then player two picks up with “… caterpillar cupcakes with anchovies and parmesan. So he went to the baker and decreed that everyone in the land had to eat caterpillar cupcakes or be hung from their toes in the public square for a week…” and the next player continues, then the next, and the next, then Dad pipes up to say something silly. Then, at some point, they reach “The End”, and hopefully you’ll be pulling the mini van into Grandma’s driveway at precisely the same time.