We celebrated Christmas with the wife's parents today, at her mom's house, a short 25-mile journey away, that took all day to get there and back.

Some of it was my misunderstanding of the calendar. Some of it was the recent weather. All of it turned out to be just fine.

For the past few days, it's been tremendously cold. Still, although it seemed "too cold to snow," it snowed. And it's been terribly windy. A big storm is moving through, and all the winter weather that it could bring is moving with it. We knew this. We've been hiding indoors as much as possible, shoveling to stay ahead of too much building up when it wanes, and dealing with dogs barking when the house makes noise in the wind.

Today, the trek to grandma's house has been well-thought-out and planned and discussed for day. They're the wife's parents. They divorced decades ago, but get along, and since the wife is their only child, we still gather (pandemic notwithstanding) for the birthdays and holidays as one big happy family. They both live nearby enough to be called close, but far enough to need to plan for minor excursions.

Her dad has decided he isn't up for the hour-or-so drive from his house to her house any more. He lives in the country, down winding back roads, in the hills along the mighty Mississippi river. He's fine with the shorter drives into town for groceries or other errands, but not the long drive, a third of the way up the state, for an all-day event, leading to driving home in the dark. So we've taken to driving him so he can stay connected and included. We usually divide it up, with one of us collecting him from his house to hers, and the other taking him home before returning to our house.

The wife took the picking up route, leaving me to take the kids later. It takes an hour-ish to get to his house, they planned an errand on the way, and then it takes an hour-ish to get to grandma's house from grandpa's house. So the kids and I settled in for some Christmas movies and lazy dressing with our extra couple of hours. It usually takes a half-hour or so to get to grandma's house from ours.

The wife texted they were done with their errand, and on their way to grandma's house, so we finished getting ready and took off. Still felt leisurely, so I stopped for a sugary holiday flavored coffee, and we hit the highway. Christmas spirit was riding high, with festive music on the radio, and kids excited to see everyone (and open gifts). We got just a couple miles from home and saw the "accident ahead" warning on the highway sign. I do like a smart sign when they help. Waze also confirmed heavy traffic ahead. Just over the next hill, we could see that the freeway and the HOV bypass we were on both had traffic backed up a couple miles before the next exit. I brilliantly thought "I'll take the alternate route, through downtown, and catch the freeway on the otherside, after where the sign said the accident was."

There's where my calendar miss hit. The traffic was much lighter getting into downtown, and through the first streets. A bit more than I would have expected on any other Saturday morning, but I figured it was probably elevated because others had similar ideas. As we hit the half-way through downtown point, it became clear that I hadn't realized that the Vikings were playing football at the stadium today...in about ten minutes. This was the back-up of late-to-the-game traffic, plus accident avoiding bypassers. It took almost a half hour to get the dozen blocks through downtown. I was in the middle lane, preparing to enter the freeway, well before we hit the traffic, so I was stuck and couldn't avoid the middle of downtown, because there was no getting to an outside lane to turn and avoid the stadium.

I texted the missus, who noted they were also a little slower than anticipated because of the weather and cautious drivers.

We eventually were free of the downtown traffic, and hit the freeway on the other side. The freeway still wasn't flowing at any faster speed, though. Seems other accidents had been happening before or while we were underway. In all, we drove past a handful of vehicles on the road or shoulder, or over the shoulder in the hill or ditch on the other side, all facing the wrong direction. Cars had to slow to look, avoid the same slick spot, or just deal with other cars that were doing the same.

We made it to grandma's house about 30 minutes late. We had barely parked when the wife and her dad pulled up, too. We all got out and walked into grandma's house together, which she was fine with as we were all safe.

We all settled in, while grandma put the finishing touches on things. The wife went up to grandma's television room, and I got the game streaming on my tablet, while the kids played on the floor. Grandpa told me of his fade from football fandom, and how he doesn't watch any more. He marveled at how good the signal was on my iPad, though, and how the picture was so clear and didn't seem to have any of the occasional artifacts or hiccups his satellite television service has. I reminded him again that we could hook him up with the streaming services if he'd just get the Internet back into his house.

The Vikings triumphed in a nail-biter down to the last play, with a 61-yard field goal for the win. This guaranteed the Vikings the division, as the Lions and Packers are far enough behind to not win enough of the remaining games. The Vikings have a slim shot at winning the first-seed, if the Eagles loose the rest of the season and the Vikings win the rest. But a good Christmas gift to all the Vikings fans, with a dramatic finish!

A good time was had by all, during and after the game. We ate some lunch, and then cleaned up, and then started with the things by the tree. The kids and grandparents got some gifts. Everyone got some stuff in stockings. We've been going light on adult gifts for a while now, since we all have all the stuff we need. I got a knit hat, because you can always wear a new one, and some candy. The wife got socks and candy. We give the grandparents a calendar that the wife puts together with all the birthdays and other things on it, filled with family photos from the recent past. The kids got some toys they'd been wanting, and a set of matching pajamas, which they seem to get into (although they otherwise generally dislike matching in any other way).

We ate dinner and cookies and told stories. The neighbor kids brought over some cookies they'd baked, so they joined in and told some stories, too. Everyone was warm and comfy, and then it was time to drive back home.

Because the wife did the first long leg, I got the after dark long leg. The plan was to leave about an hour before we actually did, so I had a chance to get to grandpa's house with the sun still in the sky, but both arriving late and having the neighbors drop in tweaked that schedule. We got on the road while the sun was up, but hit the highways and county roads in the dark. I followed Waze's directions, which took us zig-zagging down some long, straight two-lane roads between farms. Each time we got to an intersection that grandpa recognized as a path to his usual route, he'd want to turn that way, but I'd continue forward or turn the other way. Each time I pointed to the display, and showed the "15 minutes longer" suggestion for the usual route, and talked about preferring the straight shots to the winding hills. It was a really dark dark, and each house in the distance blended with the stars we could see, so it was hard to tell the horizon, except that many of the distant lights had a Christmas theme to them. High beams weren't always awesome, as the snow would reflect like sparkly disco fields, or the sudden contrast with the stark white on the side of the road would actually be worse than not having the deeper illumination.

In the end, grandpa appreciated the smoother and straighter ride, even if he wasn't familiar with the path in the dark. We hit the riverside road just before his county road turn off, went through just the last couple miles of turning hill roads, and then through the deep drifts that had blown over his previously plowed back road. He appreciated why we each took my Jeep Wrangler, with its (factory) larger wheels and higher ground clearance than the wife's Grand Cherokee. We puttered around his yard a bit, getting his stuff in the house, and looking at his car, stalled outside his garage. It seems the car is fine, but his key fob "can't be found," so the car refuses to start. These nice keyless cars these days have a downside when you can't just push the key in to tell the engine to start. I offered to push his car the few feet into the garage, either by hand or with my Jeep, but he said he'd be fine and could get new batteries into the fob and move the car later. I backed down his quarter mile driveway and road as the snow was too deep to turn around in, and headed home.

I did find that the slowest drivers prefer the two-lane roads. It was dark and cold and windy, and they were each driving compact sedans or small cross-overs, so it was probably a lot worse than in my big 4-door Wrangler with all its "magic traction" and big wheeled oomph. It took a couple hours to get home from grandpa's house with the slows and delays, and driving a little slower out in the wild because it is safer. The little little was already tucked in. The big little followed shortly after I got home. Santa's coming tonight, after all.

After the kids went down, the wife and I watched some buffer television, a two-part Christmas story on the CBS version of Ghosts. After we were sure the sleepers were soundly doing so, we pulled out the yet unwrapped gifts and wrapped with a flurry. We built up the small bundles in piles beneath the tree and set out for bed. it's a small thing, and we're managing expectations to make it seem like a good bit of Christmas joy. Like we saw in the earlier movie A Christmas Story Christmas, "when you're a kid, all you want is the perfect Christmas gift; when you're a parent, all you want is for Christmas to be perfect," and seldom does it work out that way. There were wishes of cell phones and game consoles that we aren't going to do, so new Lego and fidgets and little things like that have to be enough.

Until tomorrow, which is just a few minutes from now!

Everyone's healthy.