VACATION TIME

These are our last days of our school vacation.. What better reason is there to reflect upon holidays?

Dear Holiday,
I love you as an institution; I love you for what you stand for: A well deserved period of fun and relaxation after a period of hard work.

Memories of days long past come floating back; long, lazy days filled with sweet nothing. During our school holidays back in the days, when I was a young girl, we didn’t have a computer at home. My parents couldn’t afford to go away during each vacation. German TV at that time only had three channels, our kid’s entertainment started at 5.10pm, and ended at 7pm.

We had a big yard and my brother and I had enough willing neighbours to play with us. Time spent at home during school holidays is a pleasant blur. We read books, went on bike rides and later on a teenagers, we still went on bike rides, just a little bit further away.

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Did we drive my mom crazy?  I don’t think so. This lady has a talent to keep herself – and others, busy. Always has been, always will be. Obviously, I asked her this question, several times even. And always the same response: “Oh, I really don’t remember, that is so long ago!” Our dad was mostly at work’; we definately didn’t drive him crazy.

Dear Holiday, as a working woman I cherish you to charge up replenished batteries –  we all need a rest once in a while.

Dear Holiday, in my current state and carreer as a mother of four, you are driving me crazy!

Holiday time at home is luxury and fun during the first three days. The luxury of staying up late, getting up even later and slouching in ones PJ’s can’t be stressed enough. Holiday time frees me up from a demanding taxi service four nights a week to bring any one of the boys to soccer practise. At least now I can design my own evening entertainment.

Any longer than three days and anarchy takes over!

Mrs. Holiday, I hold you responsible to turn our life upside down, to let our well rehearsed, well established routine fall into pieces. Nothing makes sense anymore. If I don’t offer our boys a list of activities ( e.g. ice-skating, movies, skiing, trail walking), they are more than happy to roll out of their bed straight onto the comfy couch in our men den to start on the xbox.

We are getting up way too late, we don’t know if we should eat breakfast or lunch, our dishes are pilling up in the sink. It’s driving me crazy!

Dearest holiday, I appreciate you as a wonderful opportunity to experience daily life in a more extra-ordinary fashion these days. But as you know, all good things have to come to an end. This is what happens to all good or bad things, they have to end. The good thing about bad things coming to an end is that we have the chance to start fresh again.

The good things, like holidays, need to come to an end too; otherwise we wouldn’t enjoy and appreciate them so much!

Therefore, on Monday my children will be sad that you are over, but I will be happy! Life as I know it will be upon us-again!