The Panel and Holday Travel

This week The Panel takes on the question of Travelling During the Holidays.  Who loves it, who hates it?

Who is court-ordered to stay in the city to avoid becoming a

"Flight Risk?"

Find out after the jump!

Allrighty folks, Houston here as your captain this week.  Apparently Justin's PPS (Portable Porn Server) crashed and burned last night due to an overload from the webcam feeds.  Hopefully he will get the gerbil back on the wheel and the laptop will be back to squeaking along soon.

Since I am running willie-nillie around here and drunk with power drunk, lets see what the members of The Panel had to say about Holiday Travel.

First up is is Michelle:

Traveling for the holidays tends to start out as a fun trip that turns into a nightmare. Take the one time I went to my grandmothers. I was walking through the woods and when I got there, she tried to eat me! My grandmother had these giant teeth, you know, and it was horrible. It totally ruined my favorite red coat. Then, this one time, myself and my brother were out walking to our aunts house and we got lost, so this nice old lady invited us into her house. She tried to carve us up! Really! Luckily, we pushed her, she fell against her oven door, and we escaped, but I just couldn't figure out why all these people kept trying to eat me! Then there was the time I traveled to the holiday party and lost my one of my best shoes, car broke down on the way home, got home and my dress didn't look as good as it had when I left. Total nightmare. There was the apple that was spoiled and made me sick, just terrible. So all in all, I'm going to have to say that no, I don't especially care for holiday travel.

Stephanie weighs in:

Traveling for the holidays: Love it or hate it?

Generally speaking, I love to travel. I'm a sucker for road trips and adventures; it's pretty pathetic, actually. That said, though, I don't usually travel for holidays...I imagine I should hate it because I hate traffic and I hate people, but I dunno, man. Then again, I also kind of think holidays that insist on getting large groups of people together for a vague reason rooted merely in "tradition" is ridiculous, so this entire notion strikes me as being vaguely preposterous. Perhaps I am jaded in my old age, but seriously...'tis stupid.

I still love road trips though. And airports!

I don't think I have an answer to this question.

Kristin has a hot opinion...

I've never traveled for the holidays. Every holiday for the past 25 years have been celebrated in Vegas. It truly is a rock star life. I wouldn't know to love or hate it.

Jen shoots one into the fray:

Traveling for the holidays

I can answer this question very easily. I dislike traveling for the holidays by car. I hate traveling by car anytime. I like flying on the holidays because they always overbook flights and I can usually score some free vouchers and fund my next trip. Like a two for one. It’s awesome. I like hanging out in airports and watching people stress over the kids and layovers.  I’m usually fortunate in that I don’t lose luggage (once) or get things broken. I don’t miss flights and flights are rarely delayed or cancelled and I have never crashed, not once. (knocking on wood). Granted, flying has gotten a bit less fun over the years and I have never been a first class traveler, most unfortunate, but it is still a wonderful feeling to be leaving problems behind for a few days. So I would say if I had to travel on the holidays, I prefer flying. Case in point, I am opting out of Thanksgiving this year as traveling in a car for 7 hours each way for a turnaround trip has no appeal. I will be doing the trip for a 48 hour stay on Christmas, because family only takes so many holiday excuses. Bah Humbug!

Next up is Justin:

Considering the fact that I've never, ever traveled for the holidays in my life, I'd definitely say that traveling for them is a bad thing. To me there's nothing better than celebrating the holidays in the comfort of your own home, watching football, and cussing at the TV when that idiot so-called receiver drops what should be a sure touchdown catch and they have to settle for a field goal.

Sadly, this Thanksgiving I'll be breaking the "stay-at-home" tradition and going to Fort Worth to see family up there. It will certainly be a new experience for me, so maybe I'll change my mind about this whole thing.

But I doubt it.

To wrap things up, here are my thoughts... (BTW I go last not because my ego says I should, but because I was actually the last to finish mine. WIN FOR PROCRASTINATION!):

Traveling for the Holidays?

You must be kidding right?  Can you imagine loading a minivan with five kids and driving anywhere; much less the 865 miles to Knoxville, Tennessee to visit family?  That is a fifteen hour drive across East Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee

We have tried several different methods; the one which has the least impact on this children is the “Load up and leave out at 3PM the day before we are supposed to be there.  We then drive “On Through the Night” (Sorry Def Leppard reference there.)  While this works great for the kids, it leaves THE WIFE and I feeling like a January 1^st Hangover.  The reason for this is in order to stay up all night while driving you are downing, coffee, cola and sugary snack food, so we are extremely “Tweaked Out” for the next day which leaves the kids on their own.

Another option is the get up at 3AM and drive through the night and the next day.  This isn’t too bad but when 7AM rolls around and the sun is just about to come up, it is very, very hard to stay awake.  Once the sun comes up, it gets easier, but then you have children awake and needing to pee every 15 minutes.

No… I elect to change religions rather than to have to travel during the holidays again.  HATE IT!

Mollie Katie chose not to participate this week as she is busy plotting my death for nicknaming her mom "Mommie Katie!"  If she doesn't kill me, I'll see you next week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!