A Mollmann Family Christmas

exploring the Mollmann woods

My wife and I used to split our trips home for Christmas between our two families, often driving from Cincinnati to Cleveland on Christmas Day. Since moving to Florida and having kids, though, we've kept to one location for Christmas, and we've made that her family in Cleveland, since we always do my family for Thanksgiving.

But I do have treasured memories of Christmas Eve at my grandparents'. Ever since I was a kid, the whole Mollmann family convened in their basement—though first, two kids (usually one boy and one girl) had to carry a figurine of Baby Jesus to his place in the manger. Then we'd eat cold cuts for dinner, snack on "ordervs" and desserts, and do presents.

My kids have never done Baby Jesus, since we haven't been to Cincinnati for Christmas since they've been born. When I saw my grandmother—then ninety-five, now ninety-six—this summer, I realized I needed to make taking the kids to a Mollmann Christmas a priority, and stop assuming it would just happen someday.

Christmas... tractors?

The timing was bad this year. The kids' and my wife's last day was the 22nd, which could mean flying on the 23rd or 24th. I concocted a plan: what it, this time, we drove? This would avoid holiday ticket prices, give us more flexibility on traveling with presents, and not require us to rent a car. It's about 13.5 hours from Tampa to Cincinnati according to Google, which is more like 16+ with kids, a bit much... but what if we stopped at my parents' place in Tennessee? Hayley then suggested we didn't have to just do Cincinnati, we could also go to Cleveland; having a car would give us that flexibility.

So, a plan was concocted:

• 23rd: do an early Christmas morning at home and then drive to Tennessee (possibly power through if things were going really well)
• 24th: drive from Tennessee to Cincinnati, do Christmas Eve at my Grandma's
• 25th: do Christmas morning and lunch with my family, drive to Cleveland, do Christmas dinner with Hayley's dad's side
• 26th: celebrate Christmas with Hayley's dad
• 27th: celebrate Christmas with Hayley's brother and his family
• 28th: drive back to Cincinnati
• 29th: one day in Cincinnati to do stuff
• 30th: drive from Cincinnati to Tennessee
• 31st: drive from Tennessee to Florida

serious business!

A nine-day trip... six days of which we would spend driving! Were we insane?

I was fearful it would be a miserable disaster... but actually it all went pretty fine. The kids are old enough now (five and three) that long car trips aren't so tough, and they both have tablets these days. There were only two days of very long driving; Tennessee-Cincinnati is just 3.5 hours, and Cincinnati-Cleveland is four. My ambition of driving straight through on day one did not work out when we didn't get to Tennessee until midnight through a combination of 1) late start, 2) bad traffic, and 3) the world's slowest McDonald's, but we were out the door by 8am the next day and got to Cincinnati by noon.

It was great to do Mollmann Christmas, both at my Grandma's and my parents'; Son One did Baby Jesus, and he took it very seriously. Son One got matchbox cars in the gift exchange, and Son Two a stuffed owl, so both were pleased. Son Two very much enjoyed Grandma's punch, though he also spilled it all over. It was a lot more fun to do Christmas morning with my family instead of over Zoom! The Cleveland trip was quick but nice. On the 29th, we took the kids to the "Holiday Junction" train display at the Cincinnati Museum Center, which has a massive model train display plus LEGO trains supplied by my brother's LEGO User Group. We also got to see my friend David, who we haven't seen in some time.

The trip back was nice. We left for Tennessee in the morning so we got to do a lazy afternoon there with my parents, who had driven down for New Year's, and our drive home was perfectly smooth. No bad traffic, no bad fast food, and some good fun thanks to my inspired downloading of a Ramona Quimby audiobook.

So... do it again next year?