In my mind, Christmas road trips should be an amazing five hours filled with Christmas music and good cheer. What's not to love about going somewhere fun to see people you love for Christmas right? In reality, though, I think we all know that sometimes the Christmas road trip can really unravel even the cheeriest caroler in the car...

1. The morning of the trip comes, and you couldn't be more excited for a magical Christmas journey:

You get into the car full of enthusiasm and joy, and you feel sure all the hours will just melt by.

2. For the first hour or so, you sit in the car and plan all the stuff you're going to do when you get to wherever you're going:

In a moment of true excitement, you start to make a list of Christmas activities on your phone, because the possibility of forgetting one is too tragic to think about.

3. Eventually, your sibling starts to get a little too close to your side of the car, and it's stressful but you keep your Christmas joy strong:

Even though they definitely are taking up like three-quarters of the back seat, you try to stay calm because it's obviously the season of joy and stuff.

4. Then you start to get really hungry, but there's only one kind of questionable place to eat for the next fifty miles, so you have to make do, but life is starting to get stressful now:

Questioning the food is pointless and only leads to more fear, so in this case you just decide it's better to blindly trust and round the sanitation rating up to the nearest tenth.

5. You're recovering from the sketchy food, and then someone turns off the Christmas music and you can't understand why someone would ever make such a bad decision:

When someone turns down, or heaven forbid turns off, the Mariah Carey Christmas album, it feels like maybe you can't trust that person ever again.

6. Then you're almost there, but suddenly there's a huge traffic jam and you think you may actually die in the car:

Spirits are wavering, but you feel like you can probably make it, but then you look out the window and suddenly you know that this is where it all ends.

7. Then someone turns on the Christmas music again, so you can jam out and the situation improves a little bit:

If you close your eyes while listening to Christmas music, you discover you can pretend to be in the North Pole instead of in a tiny car of sadness.

8. And then suddenly, a true Christmas miracle occurs and you finally arrive, and all is right with the world again:

You immediately forget all of the pain of the past few hours and realize that now you can finally do all of the stuff on your Christmas agenda, and also eat your weight in Christmas cookies!