Is there anything wrong with staying home?

Trapped inside the home? Yes! 

Why do parents have an urge to drag their kids this place and that on a school break?

Is there anything wrong with staying home?

Between trips to Disney World and out-of-town relatives, we should all be exhausted and broke
I hope not. Because that's what we're doing.

Except for an occasional outing to a park or mall, we are the holiday homebodies of 2010.
It's not as if we're bored.
We have bedrooms to clean. Mountains of papers and clothes await our attention.
We have books to read. Those, too, are piling up. And a new family Kindle, packed with free classics, is burning to be held.

We have each other. During the school year, relations teeter on the edge, with the unpleasant topics of homework and wake-up time for school the predominant topics of conversation (or in many cases, a soliloquy).

We have holiday TV and movies, and a chance to turn back the clock to see some of the old stuff.

We have neighborhood Christmas lights to see, and neighbors who tend to turn friendlier this time of year.
We have grandparents to see.

We have late nights to ponder and late mornings to sleep. We see the true biological rhythm of the tween-teen body, with natural bedtime after midnight and natural awake time near noon. No wonder it's so difficult to get children to sleep at 9 and have them awake by 6:30. Our children are happier, and calmer, with the free-wheeling time clock of the break. It's just too bad that rigid school schedules are still stuck in 19th century agrarian America.

There's something to be said for the peace of the family home when there's no scrambling involved.

Try being a homebody. Cook a meal together. Tell stories together. Read aloud together.

Meanwhile, I think of Disney. Of course our girls would love to be in their Fantasyland. A twinge of guilt seeps in for not taking them somewhere. Yet again, they have stood in the lines, seen us pay the admission, felt the ache in their arches after a day on their feet. They know the price of forced fun.

Yes, we'll run around again someday. For now, we are happy to be home.
Because soon, in a week, we'll hear the alarm clock, feel the jolt, and catapult into the outside world once again.

Jeff Kleinman is an editor at The Miami Herald, the husband of a teacher and the father of two girls, a teen and a tween.

Visit his other Dad on Duty blog posts at http://www.momsmiami.com/?a=profile&u=64&t=blog. Follow on Twitter @jeffkleinman