The husband and I are about to embark on our yearly pilgrimage to the decaying industrial wasteland of my youth. The holidays are hard and holiday travel is worse, so enjoy this list of survival tips, and make it your destination with your sanity intact.

1. Fly Southwest. I find this necessary because my mother will inevitability give us gifts despite our protestations and then we’ll have to pack them home. Southwest’s baggage friendly policies make them my go to for holiday travel.

One caveat – if the weather gets bad and your flight is canceled, enjoy your sleep on the airport floor. They offer no hotel vouchers for weather issues.

Ideally, you can avoid packing much in the way of objects, stick with a light carry on, and fly with any airline you choose. However, if your family insists on gifts… Southwest, it is.

Chicago Midway Airport. A wretched hive of lines and misery during a snowstorm.

2. Avoid Children. Like, don’t have them. Then you neither have to fly with them, nor inflict them upon others. It’s all win. If you do bring your small human on the plane and said small human spends the entire flight kicking the back of my seat, then I shall curse you and your house with incurable acne for seven generations.

Note: Don’t ask how, just run with it. Oh, and please don’t send me angry messages about kids. I love other people’s kids. Just not on planes.

3. Wear Antiperspirant. This one is for you. Also, for me. Antiperspirant all around, please. Holiday airline travel is no time for simple deodorant or ineffective crystals.

4. Do not drink heavily the night before. You do not want to be the passenger using the vomit bag. Yes, I am speaking from experience. No, you may not ask questions.

5. Pack an empty water bottle. Once you get through security, fill that baby up. Drink from it. Avoid dehydration.

These bottles contain moonshine, not water. Do not pack them.

6. Pack snacks. Do not give airlines and airports the pleasure of the upcharge. They are cheap bastards who pack us into planes like cattle and charge us $6 for a handful of chips. Take that pain and feed it back to them in the form of reduced profits. It’s all we have, really.

7. Noise cancelling headphones + music of choice + a healthy imagination. This is even more effective if you also pull your hat over your eyes. In this way, you can be anywhere you want, and nothing seems sends a stronger signal to your seatmate that you want left alone than blocking all your senses.

8. Wear proper footwear. This is not the day to wear your thigh high lace up boots. We will hate you at security and will silently cheer when you are hauled off for a randomly selected and overly handy pat down.

9. Don’t hog the chargers. Airports never have enough of the damn things and we all need them. Avoid airport hunger games and pack a battery pack. This reminds me – I need a new battery back.

10. Don’t Participate. Just opt out of the whole damn thing and stay home. Do as I say, not as I do.

Happy holidays and what not.