Christmas vacation: Should we stay or should we go?

Noting that I am the boss of my very small company, I can choose my own vacation -- within reason.  And my kids ended up getting two weeks vacation  at Christmas time, so it was a question of whether to stay at home or take a semi long holiday SOMEWHERE.

In fact we made up our minds this year long in advance to stay home.  That being because for the last two years we have spent half or all of Christmas away on "vacation".  While it wasn't a fiasco, it was far from being happy memories to recall.  Well, come to think of it, in my book they were a fiasco.

Two years ago, my youngest daughter and I both got food poisoning from a bad hot dog.  Yes we know this.  This left my wife to eat most of the food we had brought along for Christmas dinner and after, gain probably ten pounds (4 kilo), become angry, etc etc.  My daughter and I had bread and water.  Meanwhile my other daughter ran up a high temperature which was quite scary also because we were pretty far away from any hospital or doctors.  It came down after we had towel soaked her in cold water 5 times during the night.  That wasn't fun for anybody.  And of course last year I got a cold from December 29 two days into the vacation and ended up playing memory card game non stop with my youngest daughter in a very small room and being miserably sick.  It all would have been much "nicer" at home.

Needless to say, and because there is no snow this year, we have stayed home this vacation.  I will work during the week anyway.  But I would like to write a couple reasons why in the end staying home is the safe, nice bet to make.

1.  As mentioned, flu season, stuffed nose season, high temperature season, sick season in general.  Although, wouldn't you know it, though there is still a week left to get sick, no one has gotten sick this Christmas.  Whoopee.  But when and if you do, and it is very likely, it is much more comfortable to be sick at home than in a small apartment or penzion room, with the whole family cramped in there, just waiting to be attacked by the germs.

2.  Put the money to something else.  An outing of the whole family costs a lot to book a room or small apartment, why don't you just put the money into reconstruction that I am sure most of you still have to do on your home or apartment.  You know you still haven't even finished the kids room even though they have been there two to five years.  In that time the bathroom is already on the downswing and unless you patch it up it will be leaking on your neighbors below.  Or even a new mattress so you can get better sleep. I have some friends who make extraordinary mattresses if you want their connection.   

If you are all sorted in the reconstruction department, well then give the Ole Santa boy some money to bring your kids some real good presents.  Note that people are spending more and more on Christmas gifts in general anyway which is putting them under until March.  But, maybe some extra high cost items this year can be gotten out of the way.   Note that Jr is just about ready to ride a bike. That is a small investment to Santa, or Father Christmas or Jesus or whoever comes to visit your abode with the presents.  Or hey, a friend just sent me a picture of his 8 year old doing his best Eddie Van Halen imitation on his new electric guitar.  That must have been a pretty penny for that present.   

Two gifts my 7 year old got.  Santa is pretty cool. 

3.  The kids have a lot of free time and "known" space to test out their new gifts.  Go ahead play that new Ramones CD at 11 volume.  Or  that new flying Tinkerbell your daughter got can break something flying around the house. Its better if it breaks it in your own house rather than the rented room.  Murphy`s law number 23, something always breaks during Christmas.  You know in a rented apartment they are going to charge you 5 times the amount of the thing that got broken.  That is also a law.  I always recall that it was great spreading out all my new Christmas gifts around the family room and playing really loudly with all the new games and bothering my Father who was home writing and... those were the days.

4.  Even if you have only two kids, even one maybe, the whole family can not agree on the place to go for this semi long, but not long enough holiday.  Its not like summer when you have time to satisfy everyone and do more than one thing.  I have two girls, but they are totally different when it comes to winter season.  One learned how to ski when she was 3 and wants to do it every chance she gets.  The other who is 4 now, still doesn't know how and during the winter, her time limit for being outside in the snow is about 20 minutes.   This is about as long as it takes to get on all the snow gear in the first place.  Last year we would take twenty minutes to get on her winter clothes and we would sled in the yard and get snowy for twenty minutes then she was finished, wanted to go back inside.  Since I was sick, I didn't argue.  There was really no point to it, although for some reason she said she had a great time playing memory game with me non stop in our cramped little room.   Oh well, I guess in the end she was satisfied.  She will never remember it anyway.

This snowman arts and crafts piece no longer exists, I ate it.

5.  Time to explore your own neighborhood and vicinity.  We live in a semi big city, so there is always something going on.  But I am sure, unless you are out in rural, and even there, there are new exhibitions, yes even things the kids would like. Check out a theatre for kids with hand crafts to  do afterwards, or new paths to explore right around your house.  I have had 4 days off so far and we have done something nice (well, excluding the bad relatives visit day) every day.

As I recall when I was young, we spent 9 out of 10 Christmas` at home and besides for one bad one, I have no regrets and feel quite happy and satisfied with good memories.   Save your money, save the gas, stay at home.

On the downside:  There is that visit to the relatives day and that can be a nightmare as a fellow Dad blogger has written about eloquently HERE.  Why all the dirty laundry comes out when relatives get together for the holidays, I don't know.  Its like the movie "Ordinary People" ten fold.  Not as bad as the Star Wars saga, you know Darth Vader, oh, I better not ruin it for you if you haven`t seen the older movies.

More downside.  As a parent you are going to have time at home to get really frustrated with the gifts that Santa or Father Christmas, or whomever, left your kids.  For me this year, my kids are good at doing puzzles, but.... um, Santa, you really do NOT have a clue when you left them a 1000 piece puzzle for a 4 year old.  Here is the current state of that puzzle we got.  If I take another picture at the end of January, I hope it will have progressed at least a little. but I have my doubts.

current status of 1000 piece puzzle (sigh)

  Happy Holidays to everyone