What are your holiday plans?

[mrsukyankee]

Anyone going anywhere fun? Home? Staying put?

I'm staying in London as per usual.  I've had bad experiences every time I've tried flying during the Christmas period so I've stopped doing it.  We've been invited over to a friend's house for dinner which will be nice.  We'll have my ILs over for breakfast (they don't really celebrate due to being Hindu).  I like London over the holidays as it does eventually get quiet in the week between Christmas and New Years.

[aMrsin09]

H is still gone, so I'm staying here for the holidays. I'm going to a friends house for Christmas Eve dinner, and i'll probably just make something small with an awesome dessert for myself for Christmas Day.
New Years, I think a few friends are having an early dinner and maybe catching the early fireworks. I don't like to be out driving on NYE. If people can find pet sitters I may invite everyone to my place for the night (I have enough beds).

[rupertpenny]

I'm going home! I'm excited, but also nervous. The flight is going to suck and we're going to spend two weeks driving all over creation to see family. BUT I can't wait to go to Target and eat some Chipotle. And I'm looking forward to showing my daughter off to everyone.

[potatopie]

We're staying put for the first time since moving here 4.5 years ago. I'm a little sad because I love the holidays with my family, but we were just there in September, and it's a hard trip on DS. I can't put him through that again for awhile.

Luckily the weather is gorgeous here and there's a lot going on since it's tourist season. Plus, a lot of our expat friends will be in town so I imagine we'll be doing things with them. Not a bad deal overall

[orriskitten]

We are staying put. Maybe very put if this snow doesn't slow down!

Doing Christmas Eve dinner at the ILs and breakfast here with the family that can make it (SIL just had a baby and isn't going out much) because they don't do much Christmas Day. We are going to have a nice dinner Christmas Day just the 4 of us. Then there are 2 days of funky icelandic food celebrations.

NYE we're going to be with the ILs and go to a bonfire somewhere. Really big here. Then DH and I plan on sitting in our hot tub watching fireworks at midnight as our children sleep through them (ha. Hahaha.)

[rupertpenny]

Dec 18, 2014 8:31:35 GMT -5 orriskitten said:

We are staying put. Maybe very put if this snow doesn't slow down!

Doing Christmas Eve dinner at the ILs and breakfast here with the family that can make it (SIL just had a baby and isn't going out much) because they don't do much Christmas Day. We are going to have a nice dinner Christmas Day just the 4 of us. Then there are 2 days of funky icelandic food celebrations.

NYE we're going to be with the ILs and go to a bonfire somewhere. Really big here. Then DH and I plan on sitting in our hot tub watching fireworks at midnight as our children sleep through them (ha. Hahaha.)

Are the trolls coming to visit yet? They should be right? I loved that as a kid. I also love eating lamb for our vid Christmas time dinner instead of turkey or ham.

[orriskitten]

Dec 18, 2014 9:34:16 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Dec 18, 2014 8:31:35 GMT -5 orriskitten said:

We are staying put. Maybe very put if this snow doesn't slow down!

Doing Christmas Eve dinner at the ILs and breakfast here with the family that can make it (SIL just had a baby and isn't going out much) because they don't do much Christmas Day. We are going to have a nice dinner Christmas Day just the 4 of us. Then there are 2 days of funky icelandic food celebrations.

NYE we're going to be with the ILs and go to a bonfire somewhere. Really big here. Then DH and I plan on sitting in our hot tub watching fireworks at midnight as our children sleep through them (ha. Hahaha.)

Are the trolls coming to visit yet? They should be right? I loved that as a kid. I also love eating lamb for our vid Christmas time dinner instead of turkey or ham.

They have! The first night was last Thursday. Between the trolls, Hanukkah (I'm Jewish) and Christmas, my kid is not going to know what life is like without presents lol. I really love the lamb tradition. I actually would do it in the States every Christmas Eve because I liked it so much!

[origami]

We went back to the US. I'm not sure we'll do it next year though because the time change is a bitch. But now that we're here I'm enjoying buying all the things. I don't even mean Xmas gifts because we are going really light on those. I'm stocking up on tea, cereal, food pouches for the kids, canned stuff, etc. Immigration will think we went shopping at the Food Bank for xmas.

[frlcb]

We just got to prague today, here tio Sunday then going to the UK til the 2nd

[potatopie]

Dec 18, 2014 16:29:22 GMT -5 origami said:

We went back to the US. I'm not sure we'll do it next year though because the time change is a bitch. But now that we're here I'm enjoying buying all the things. I don't even mean Xmas gifts because we are going really light on those. I'm stocking up on tea, cereal, food pouches for the kids, canned stuff, etc. Immigration will think we went shopping at the Food Bank for xmas.

oh man, the selection of pouches boggles my mind every time I go back. We have such limited choices here.

[rupertpenny]

I will probably bring back a whole bag just filled with pouches.

[GilliC]

We're going to Cambodia (via south Vietnam), so we'll be spending Christmas day on a cruise barge in the Mekong delta and New Year's in Phnom Penh.

[dorothyinAus]

We're having Christmas Dinner with my in-laws.  I'm making a lemon ice cream cake -- I'm actually very nervous about it because my MIL's cakes are locally famous.

Then we're headed to the US for NYE in San Francisco before flying to Tampa for a cruise on January 4.  I'm very excited about that.  We're taking the cruise with my parents and then we'll be in NOLA for a few days before flying back at the end of January.  While in NOLA, I'm going to have dinner with my BFF from high school, who I haven't seen since 2007!  And we're planning to meet up with the third of our musketeer gang who has moved back from Beijing.

[pittpurple]

We never travel for Christmas as we did it once and swore to never do that again! It's just us for Christmas though we're going to a friends for dinner on Xmas day (though she was due with her first 3 days ago so we'll see if that actually happens!) and then another friend for Boxing Day.

However, for several years now we have gone away for Hogmanay (New year's) week with a group of friends. There are 16 of us this year plus 4 babies with LO being the oldest! Last year she was the only kid so it will be great to have more around. They are just getting old enough to entertain each other so hoping it is a more relaxing experience than when she was the only one. We rent a big house and eat (and drink) lots of food and go on walks and such, will be lovely. We're going to the Lake District this year.

orriskitten - LO is absolutely ridiculous with presents as well. Her birthday is at the end of November, then I have Chanukah for her and DH has Christmas - she's actually starting to expect presents all the time now, January will be quite a disappointment!

And your plans for hot tub + fireworks sounds lovely.

[orriskitten]

Dec 21, 2014 14:45:15 GMT -5 pittpurple said:

We never travel for Christmas as we did it once and swore to never do that again! It's just us for Christmas though we're going to a friends for dinner on Xmas day (though she was due with her first 3 days ago so we'll see if that actually happens!) and then another friend for Boxing Day.

However, for several years now we have gone away for Hogmanay (New year's) week with a group of friends. There are 16 of us this year plus 4 babies with LO being the oldest! Last year she was the only kid so it will be great to have more around. They are just getting old enough to entertain each other so hoping it is a more relaxing experience than when she was the only one. We rent a big house and eat (and drink) lots of food and go on walks and such, will be lovely. We're going to the Lake District this year.

orriskitten - LO is absolutely ridiculous with presents as well. Her birthday is at the end of November, then I have Chanukah for her and DH has Christmas - she's actually starting to expect presents all the time now, January will be quite a disappointment!

And your plans for hot tub + fireworks sounds lovely.

DH and I have decided to do Chanukah a little differently for the future. We have 2 LOs so we're going to make it so every night someone gets a gift, not everyone. We're going to write it on the calendar whose night it will be, and make it an exciting thing. Like who can give the best gift.

Here is the idea:

Night 1: Gift for both kids to share
Night 2: Gift for DD (Maybe in a number of years this can be a gift from DS to DD and vice versa)
Night 3: Gift for DS
Night 4: Gift for me
Night 5: Gift for DH
Night 6: Gift to a friend/family member like grandma or grandpa
Night 7: Gift to charity (toy donation, money donation, schedule themself to volunteer, etc)
Night 8: Family gift (DVD, family game, if we're being ambitious, a family trip)

We really like the idea of it highlighting the act of giving, which brings in lots of Jewish values that I want to incorporate in the long run.

Also, if we have to give both kids gifts all the nights we just won't eat for the following month lol.

[pittpurple]

That's lovely orriskitten and I am going to think about a similar situation.
We bought some books for a charity for her birthday (a bookstore near here puts book wishes on their christmas tree from children at hospice, etc). I bought some of her and my favourite books and figured she could choose some for next year but I like the idea of doing different nights for different people. We had a tradition in my family growing up that it was 7 nights of small gifts - so stickers or books, that sort of thing and then 1 large gift for the last night so I've done that with LO, 7 nights of art supplies and then a larger gift on the last night. It just all gets a bit silly really quickly with so many other people buying her presents as well!