Speadsheet-worthy planning becoming new holiday travel ritual
Summer's over, the kids are back in school, fall schedules are in place and life seems to be returning to normal.

Wait. You're forgetting about ChristmaHanuKwanzaa. If you want to go somewhere, or manage to see your family, you better start focusing.

For many families this is the time preoccupied with who will go where when. It's a ritual that has only grown more difficult as families become more scattered; jobs have become more demanding and air travel harder.

"It's all making me a little crazy," said Jill Farnsworth, a former preschool owner from Deerfield, Wis., who is in the throes of co-ordinating her family to meet up for a warm Christmas in Florida.