Forget the Holiday; I’m Staying Home

I’m beginning to think all our efforts to prepare for holidays (and live through them) are a waste of time. Our mental health might actually improve if we carried on working. Not only would we avoid the stress of trying to fit 52 weeks into 49 or less, but the productivity of the country might actually go up.

People often quote at me, “A change is as good as a holiday.” I’m now wondering if it’s somehow possible to have a change without the holiday.

Why am I making all this fuss? Telling you in detail would be too emotionally draining at present. I may need some months to internalize the trauma of my last holiday.

Part of the problem with holidays is that I’ve finally realised parents and children work to very different agendas. When parents want to relax and doze in the sun, the kids want to make sandcastles and throw buckets of sea-water over them – and the parents. When parents become older and wiser and want to go for long peaceful walks in the native bush, the kids want to bury their heads in the stereo they snuck on board, and deafen themselves on Guns N Roses.

While the children are small, holidays down by the beach seem wondrous – until you realize what a mountain of clothing you must take in order to compensate for each fall in the mud or each fully-dressed swim. And it always rains a lot more on holidays; washing machines appear to follow the “change is as good as a holiday” maxim and become conveniently absent from the holiday home.

We stayed at a beach holiday home one year. Each of the children in turn managed to pick up some bug that caused them to vomit up a spectacular reddish mixture – all over the crib carpet. Fortunately we weren’t far from town and were able to drive home for clean-ups and fresh supplies – three days in a row.

Living under a real roof is at least marginally like home. For a period we foolishly joined the rugged tent brigade. Our tent was an amazing construction that had two rooms, several windows, and extra doors; it also kept out the worst downpour I’ve ever experienced. But by the time a week had finished, there were nappies in our bed – clean or dirty, who could tell? – dozens of little wet garments wondering why they being allowed to go moldy, and bits of food residing happily under every footfall.

As well, we understood why progress had left tents behind as housing material. One night, about two in the morning, some hoons drove into the camping ground. Headlights blazing, and tyres digging mini-trenches all round the ground, they spent a half-hour racing up to the tent flaps, missing them only at the last moment. A piece of canvas doesn’t seem much protection against a roaring mass of metal.

Masses of metal are another cause of holiday stress. I’ve only just begun to feel confident that my current vehicle will get us there and back without conking out on some isolated unsealed road.

One year, after packing up the car to come home, we stepped inside the house for a last minute check. The car decided it couldn’t wait any longer. Off it rolled down the hill until a solid church building signaled Stop!

Another year we borrowed a van and trailer. (Never borrow anything mechanical – or electrical.) On the way home the van selfishly drank all the radiator water, and strangulated the motor.

What’s the solution to the problem of holidays?

Next year I may send my wife off with her friends, fishing for flounders,. The kids can go and stereo-blast the birds off the trees somewhere while sitting inside pretending they’re at home.

I’ll just loll about at work and do nothing, enjoying the fact that everyone else is away – suffering.