When I was a kid, my family used to drive from southwest Virginia to Nashville almost every year for Thanksgiving. In the mid-eighties, when the speed limit everywhere was 55, it took just over six hours.

Six hours in the car for a ten-year-old was utter living Hades: it was never-ending boredom in the days before smart phones, portable DVD players, and iPods.

The trip there was bearable, for there was something to look forward to. The trip back was hellish because all the excitement had passed.

Six hours in a car — a long, long, long time.

Six hours with family and good friends on Christmas day, though, passes in a flash.