For almost as far back as I can remember, my family has loved surprising each other. My first memory of a family surprise was back when we lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. My older brother was off in college and he said he wasn’t going to come home for one of the holidays. Then one evening, we got a knock on the door and my brother was standing there with a big smile on his face; he’d managed to book a flight, land in a city more than an hour away, and get a ride back home without raising any suspicions. Since then, both my dad, my older brother, and I had surprised the family at one point or another. This past Christmas was my little brother’s chance to get in on the surprising end of the action.

I was going to drive from New Mexico out to Oklahoma to spend the holidays with my little brother. Since he was enrolled in intersession classes, we didn’t expect to go to be able to go to Atlanta (where my older brother lives) or Bahrain (where my parents are residing). The night before I left for Oklahoma, though, my little brother said his professor cancelled all classes between Christmas and New Years Day and he suggested that we roadtrip 14 hours out to Gerogia and surprise my older brother and family. It was a phenomenal idea! I drove to Oklahoma on the 21st and we took off for Atlanta early on the 22nd. We arrived late and weary on the 22nd and surprised my older brother, Bhabie, niece, nephew, Bhabie’s sister and her husband. My older brother was shocked, to say the least, and even though Keshav and I were exhausted when we arrived, we ended up staying up until 4am playing Pictionary. Yes…we’re all board game addicts.

On top of playing various board/card games, I got to take my niece and nephew swimming and rockclimbing, we played basketball and video games, and we went to see butterflies and some amazing holiday lights at Callaway Gardens. The roadtrip itself rocked, too: my little brother and I listened to music, bonded, and had some great BBQ at the The Golden Rule in Irondale, Alabama. I couldn’t find it on the menu, but order “a Pork sandwich, sliced, inside cut, spicy.” Thanks for the heads up, LeMonte.

Sigh. It was all awesome. All the things I had intended to get done over the break didn’t get done, but everything I did was so much better than anything I had intended to do.