Christmas Road Trip (Part 2)

Today is the second installment of this year’s Christmas story. If you’d like to read Part 1, you can find it here.

     The day had finally arrived! Christmas was only a few days away and it was time to begin our trip to my parents in Florida.
     The boys woke up full of energy and chattered away about the trip. They were especially excited about going to the beach, something they had never done before. Mom had assured me she’d have plenty of beach towels and she had also bought some sand toys. I was thankful not to have to worry about packing these things.
     Mike was out in the driveway loading things into our Honda Pilot, trying to leave some space for Aunt Hattie’s things. He had attached the roof bag and fit as many pieces of our luggage into it as possible. As we both stood back and looked at the room available for Aunt Hattie, we were pleased. She should have plenty of room to add her one suitcase and a few gifts.
     Around 10am we set off for Aunt Hattie’s house. When we arrived, she was standing outside, her petite frame engulfed by her long purple coat. Fluffy white ear muffs and a scarf covered with cheerful, sparkly snowmen completed her attire. In her arms was Princess, whose tail started wagging as soon as she saw the car pull in.
     Aunt Hattie put Princess down, who immediately jumped in the car to greet the boys. They giggled as she excitedly jumped back and forth between them giving them kisses, her bright red and green Christmas collar jingling with every move. Meanwhile, Aunt Hattie gave both Mike and me a grandmotherly hug.
     “Oh, isn’t it so exciting? Can you believe it is the day we are to leave? I’ve been so looking forward to this!” She had the biggest smile on her face.
     Both Mike and I had yet to notice the huge pile of stuff on the porch that was somehow supposed to fit in the car. I happened to glance over at Mike just as his eyes moved to the porch. His eyes grew large and he took a deep breath—I knew just what he was thinking—but he didn’t say a word as he went over to pick up a few of the bags.
     “Oh, I hope this isn’t too much…”
     “Well, let’s see what we can do, Aunt Hattie,” Mike said cheerfully.
     When it was all said and done, only a couple of bags with non-essentials ended up not making the trip with us. The car was packed to the gills and Mike would have no view out his back window but it wasn’t the first time for him to drive like this and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
     Tucking the two unnecessary bags inside the house, she locked the door and climbed in the car to sit beside Aiden, who was in the middle seat. Miles was holding Princess, who had already crawled into a little ball into his lap and lay there contentedly.
     Meanwhile, Aiden was already whining, “Mom….I want the puppy.”
     Mike stepped in immediately, “you both will need to take turns with the puppy. We will let Miles have her for awhile,” and then he smiled at everyone and said, “are we all ready to go?”
     There were shouts of enthusiastic “yes!”‘s followed by a dismayed squeal.
     We all turned to Aunt Hattie to see what was wrong.
     “Oh,” she groaned, “I forgot Princess’s things. It’s in a bag in the laundry room. It has all of her food, her leash, her little fluffy reindeer, her squeaky taco, her smartbones…” Aunt Hattie listed every single thing in that bag.
     I considered the space in the car and hoped the bag was not very big.
     “Oh, it’s not a problem,” I assured her, “we will wait here while you run in to get it. It should fit on the floor below Miles,” I said, hoping I was right. The floor was already filled with toys and snacks for traveling. Thankfully, the bag wasn’t overly big and fit nicely in the small area left on the floor.
     “Oh, my,” Aunt Hattie said breathlessly as she got settled again, “do you know I forgot to shut the kitchen window? I opened it last night because it was so hot in the house for some reason I never did figure out and I so I opened it just a little teensy crack. But you know I never thought to shut it last night or this morning? Oh, my goodness, God must have had me leave that bag in my house for just that reason. I noticed it as soon as I went in and I thought to myself, Hattie, God is taking care of you because that window would have been open the whole two weeks we were gone if I hadn’t forgotten that bag. Doesn’t that just go to show you how God uses even annoying, irritating everyday things to work out His plan for us?” She stopped with a giant sigh and leaned back into her seat, “well, shall we go?”
     Mike and I glanced at each other and smiled. One thing we could be sure of is that this trip wouldn’t be boring.
     He started the car and backed out of the driveway and we were soon on our way. The traffic on the highway was surprisingly light. This was unexpected so we were grateful.
     Aunt Hattie talked non-stop for the first hour but then she seemed to wear herself out and decided to take a little nap. The boys were surprisingly content with the toys and books I had brought and I was just thinking how this trip was going to be so much better than I had thought when, suddenly, an odd noise came from the car.
     “What was that?” I asked Mike worriedly.
     “I have no idea,” his voice was concerned, “but something doesn’t feel right.”
     He pointed to the green exit sign that was coming up, “I’m going to take the exit to check it out.”
     I groaned inside. Maybe this trip wasn’t going to be so easy, after all.