I grasped for the car handle and stumbled my way out of the giant black Expedition. My knees were weak when my feet touched the ground, and I almost wanted to kneel before the Caesars Palace Hotel and kiss the scorching brick-paved ground. I had just spent six hours in an SUV packed with seven cousins watching WALL•E three times on the DVD system, trying to hold down my lunch. Did I mention that I sometimes get severely carsick, even on five-minute trips to the grocery store?

I looked up at the spectacle before me. There it was. In broad daylight, the neon lights and garish glitter of all that was horribly wrong with America: Las Vegas.

The sky was the color of dirty old blue jeans. Everywhere I looked, giant buildings loomed above us, but not in the compact way of most cities. Instead the awkwardly massive hotels and their various attractions were spread out like one big strip mall.

I had to squint against the sun’s glare because of all the mirrored walls and shiny glass. What is WITH Vegas and making things so shiny? It doesn’t matter, though, because everything still looks and feels dirty.

For example, everywhere we walked on the strip, there were men slapping these plastic fliers for strippers in our faces, their sad-sack kids sitting on the sidewalk ledge behind them. I saw a man in an Elvis costume posing halfheartedly for pictures with gleeful Japanese tourists while simultaneously trying to sell some kind of car parked behind him.

This was where hundreds of families wanted to spend Christmas? I just didn’t get it.

A total of four SUVs had been commissioned to haul all thirty of us from various locations in Southern California. Needless to say, no family member of mine (or family friend, for that matter) would be caught dead on a plane to Las Vegas. Why make a quick and comfortable journey when you could sniff seven other people’s body odor for six hours? The immigrant experience is a rich one.

After we all checked into our rooms, Ann and I decided to do some exploring, letting our parents know that we would meet up with them in a couple hours. In the chaos of getting everyone situated, my parents absentmindedly nodded their permission. We made our way through the hotel, eventually walking into Caesars Palace’s sprawling mall, the Forum.

The ceilings were painted to look like the sky, pale blue with puffy angelic clouds. I think it was supposed to feel like we were outside because I noticed that the sky gradually changed colors as if the sun was setting and rising.

I elbowed Ann and pointed. “Who are they kidding? This is so sad.”

Ann looked up and shrugged. “I think it looks kind of pretty.”

I stared at her openmouthed, then shook my head. “Have you learned nothing from being my sister?” Ann rolled her eyes and walked ahead of me.

We eventually approached a replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David in all its naked glory and immediately started cracking up. Someone had perched a giant Santa hat on his head. And did I mention he was naked?

“Where are we having dinner?” Ann asked as we walked across a three-foot-long wood “bridge” over a mini-canal running neon-blue water by the Versace store.

“At the buffet. Where else?”

I love to eat. And normally, I am all for buffets. But a Vegas buffet was on a whole other level. It felt too gluttonous, even for the holidays. Have you ever seen how many leftovers are carted off by the busboys? It literally makes me think of starving children. If starving children knew what the hell to do with five thousand crab legs as big as their own legs.

Ann pulled out her camera while we were in the Forum. She’s really gotten into photography, so she was lugging around this fancy digital one that my parents got her for her birthday, taking pictures of this and that. We took particular pleasure in a shot of me picking my nose in front of the Prada store. We took off running when we saw a saleslady (wearing what looked like a fancy black straightjacket) rush to the window.

I quickly grew bored, however, because really how many “sunsets” and “rainstorms” can one take while walking past the Gap? It was almost dinnertime anyway, so we headed back to our hotel room to meet up with everyone. It was quite a trek.

Huffing and puffing in the elevator, Ann moaned, “Why did it take us fifteen minutes to walk from the lobby to the elevator?”

“I know. Everything in this place is gigantic. Like, I think they base the architecture on how much dumb, tacky stuff they can cram in here,” I grumbled while pushing the button for the nineteenth floor.

Ann threw me an exasperated look. “Yeah, yeah, you hate Las Vegas. We get it.”

The elevator doors opened before I could think of a good comeback, and we were face-to-face with twenty-eight family members crammed into the elevator lobby. Everyone began talking at once, yelling at us for disappearing. Ann decided to head out with them for dinner, while I told them I’d meet up after I showered.

I waved good-bye to the herd and fled to my hotel room — relieved to be rid of everyone, even just temporarily. The only good thing about being on vacation with so many people was that you could slip out fairly unnoticed. Even my mom’s hawk eye took a break when she was in vacation mode.

As I showered in a bathroom bigger than my living room back home, I thought about the days ahead and wanted to bury myself in the fluffy white hotel blankets. Christmas was still three days away, and I was already sick of this place.