Christmas vacation, particularly with kids in college, can be a good time to travel.
It was the one time in the year we could guarantee they’d be home and able to go.
It can be convenient if you have children in school (we had both), when you can block out two full weeks to travel.
I’m not talking about going “home” for Christmas vacation with relatives.
I mean taking an actual trip to a different part of your normal world.
Here are five tips to consider.
“Celebrate Christmas” early
If you have children, they’re probably expecting some sort of holiday traditions.
You don’t have to go all out.
I wouldn’t bother with a Christmas tree, for example, which will only dry out while you’re gone.
But if you traditionally bake Christmas cookies, do so. You can always freeze them or give them away.
Or, bring some with you!
If you have relatives who are not traveling, have an evening with them.
Some people plan “large” gifts–open them the week before.
Advent calendars, services, stories, Christmas caroling, all can be done up until you leave in December.
Consider flying on Christmas Eve or Day
You’d be surprised how many people take to the skies on Christmas Day.
Christmas Eve can be even more crowded.
Some are traveling because of their vacation time, but others, like us, specifically chose that day.
Reserve a parking place at the airport well in advance, but otherwise it’s a holiday at the airport.
We’ve even sung Christmas carols on some flights.
Don’t abandon all traditions
We spent nearly three weeks camping through New Zealand one Christmas.
While the trip itself was the gift–endowed by an inheritance–I knew the five kids would want to acknowledge the holiday.
So, we packed miniature Christmas lights, our traditional mint M&Ms, and everyone’s Christmas stocking.
I explained well in advance that all gifts would be souvenirs purchased in New Zealand and small enough to fit in the stockings.
Since we arrived ten days before the holiday, that gave everyone an excuse to shop as we traveled.
It worked well.
Christmas vacation and church
We always look for opportunities to attend church while on vacation, Christmas or not.
We relished singing traditional New Zealand-version Christmas carols in Queenstown.
We’ve hummed along to Hawai’ian versions of Christmas carols.
I loved the twist on carols, too, in Mexico and Costa Rica.
Pointing out the differences in creches, for example, between home and elsewhere is always a good experience for children.
Christmas vacation Blues
Recognize Christmas Eve can be a problem overseas.
Unless you’re traveling to a specific tourist destination, it can be a challenge to find a place for dinner on Christmas Eve.
In our case, we wound up at a Hard Rock Cafe with a bunch of drunk businessmen.
I sat in the noisy restaurant wondering why I wasn’t at my sister-in-law’s house eating Slovenian sausage and enjoying a fire.
My son’s girlfriend had to be wondering why she’d left her family to join us.
The next day, Christmas, we made a reservation at the only restaurant open in the town.
It was a fine meal, but sitting in a restaurant didn’t feel like “home” or Christmas.
Some of the children questioned our judgement in taking a Christmas vacation so far from home that year.
The good news
Years later, everyone remembers our trips fondly.
We’re still laughing at watching a woman bungee jump on Christmas Eve while wearing a “Father Christmas,” hat.
(We later saw a woman who had to be pushed off the bridge in the Queentown church for the service!)
We appreciated being home for Christmas the next year.
Trips far away enabled us to focus on the true meaning of the holiday.
Singing “Feliz Nevidad,” on a bus from a Maori dinner event still makes me laugh.
I lost the opposum socks I found in my Christmas stocking. My now-daughter-in-law also misplaced the necklace our son purchased for her in New Zealand.
But we remember them!
We’re still eating mint M&Ms and using the same Christmas stockings.
And we’ve never hesitated to travel at Christmas vacation time since–though we prefer, always, to go together!
Feliz Navidad, Mele Kalikimaka and Kirihimete koa!
Tweetables
5 trips for vacationing over Christmas vacation. Click to Tweet
Vacationing at Christmas? 5 ways to make the trip work. Click to Tweet
5 tips for how to make a vacation with kids easier at Christmas. Click to Tweet
There is no nervous anguish
of a coming Christmas journey,
for as at home I languish
the aeroplane will come to me.
There will soon come a trade
for a derelict Stinson 105
that will, with care, be remade
into a type not now alive.
With cutting blades and hissing torch
the structure will change, pell-mell
upon my workshop (once the porch)
to the prototype Stinson Sentinel.
And perhaps I’ll meet a Christmas doom
when Barb finds wings in the living room.
It’s actually happening; I’m trading a lot of ‘stuff’ that would be hard to sell for a basket-case Stinson 105, which was the basis for the Stinson HW-75B, which led to the Stinson 76, whichbecame the series prototype for the famous L-5 lianson aerplane used in WW2 and Korea.
There’s a lot of cutting an welding involved, but,it’s not a really hard job. Just need to stretch out my energy a bit more.
And when we met, Barb did see wings in the living room.
Wonderful Christmas perspectives Michelle.
Your post reminds me of wonderful silliness with Santa hats and garland while serving a mission on Pohnpei island in Micronesia. It is 86’F at noon and 82’F at midnight, 365 days a year. As they say up here in Maine, “That makes for mighty rough sleddin’ ” Santa watch out!
Christmas expressive outbursts can be equally silly in Los Angeles, the city famous for “faux-everything”. We had kids from our church filling up their pickup trucks with snow in the mountains and racing back to town for a hasty snowball fight before it all melted quickly one 80’F Christmas day. (Something particularly Californian about that whole enterprise!)
But it somehow invoked a glimpse of “real Christmas” for us….or at least a glimpse of what Bing Crosby famously sung about. I’ve grown a bit dubious about there being much snowfall in Bethlehem on that Holy Night ! Maybe at Lake Tahoe, but not Bethlehem.
The wobbly, garbled supermarket Muzak carols do eventually lead our family to a Christmas Eve candlelight singing of Silent Night; that is if we don’t secretly pitch it all away as “stuff and nonsense”. They are, in their own way, signposts, aural reminders of God entering time and space out of love for his creation.
If I allow it, it leaves me a bit more centered. Somehow I’m anchored by love in the midst of a world made capricious and wild by sin.
Thank you and Merry Christmas !