No Christmas World Tour in 2011
Last year at this time I wrote a blog post about our annual “Christmas World Tour.” Ever since we moved to North Carolina, about 12 years ago, we have traveled every Christmas. Boy, have we traveled! Every single year we have gone to Georgia and Michigan. They’re not exactly near one another, so that meant we spent a lot of hours on the road or in the air, or both.
When we started the tradition of the “world tour” at Christmas, the girls were tiny. That first Christmas we had to convince the girls that Santa would know where to find them in Georgia to bring their gifts. We also had to make sure all those Santa gifts were transported to Georgia…and then back. We’re talking about big stuff here…Barbie Jeeps and foosball tables, and guitars. It was quite a trick to make it all happen.
As time has passed, the challenges of making the whole Santa thing happen have become less of an issue. But all along I’ve waited for the year that one or the other of the girls would object to being out of town for their entire vacation. This is the year that it was brought up to me that there was never any time to relax at home and see friends over vacation. And it was also the first year that we had to work around a teen’s work schedule. Times are changing, indeed.
So, as times change and our kids get older, we get to adjust and make changes and rearrange traditions a bit. This year we cut the world tour in half. We went to Georgia a few days before Christmas as usual. But instead of heading north the day after Christmas, we headed back to North Carolina. Our Michigan family hit the road the same day, heading to our house too. We are grateful that they were understanding about the social needs and job requirements of our teens and willing to do some traveling.
Things change and things stay the same. We will still see almost everyone in the family over Christmas. We’ll just see some of them down south rather than up north. As our kids grow up, they’re not the only ones who feel some growing pains. We all have to adjust. The really important things, though, will always be the same…love for family and the flexibility to make changes so we can have time together.
How did you handle traveling during the holidays?
