Handling the Holiday(s)

to make things more difficult, we talked to our 4 year old grandson today.


"when are you coming hommmmmmmme gramma???"

he wined oye lol

Bottom line is it's hard.

We've flown home a couple of times. Last time wasn't as enjoyable because we stayed a week at the (slightly OCD) daughter's house without a car, and it was -10f the whole time.

We'll stay south this year, and be homesick. Hopefully it won't last for too long.

I remember the first winter my late husband and I spent in AZ. We were at a Christmas Eve program and tears started running down my face and wouldn't stop. I wanted to be home with the kids and grandkids. But we all got used to it and my daughters have nobly risen to the occasion by taking the reins, which makes me very proud.

don't have a small army. Just a son and daughter with their kids and I miss them at Christmas :)

How many people can you get in a 32' motorhome... I mean really. Once the kids are big and you are retired and .... well the kids grew up and the got married and then they had kids and the in-laws and the sister and brother in-laws and then they start moving and you look up and there is now a small army of 50 relatives... in 3 different states and you want to make everyone happy and so what can you do?

Parrothead Mike wrote:
I wasn't trying to be politically correct in using the term "holidays" because my question really does include both the Thanksgiving and especially the Christmas holidays while being a snowbird.

This will be our 4th winter going south. Initially we left on February 1st, then mid-January, and last year we left December 30th. This year we plan to leave sometime right after Christmas as long as the nice weather holds up. But now we're starting to face the dilemma of leaving even earlier. (It's always nice to travel in warmer/dryer conditions.) It's a dilemma because of the holidays and family obligations/relations, etc. And as many of our snowbird friends have noted; first it's a couple of months and eventually it will be 6 months in the south.

Not sure we'll get to the 6 month snowbird experience, but without making a return trip for at least Christmas how do you all handle being away from family during the holiday period? It's not so much how we will deal with it, but I'm more concerned about our 2 kids (in their 30's & not married - no grandkids) and my nephew & his family that are more or less like our kids.

I want to break the news to them that we're thinking of heading south in November or possibly right after Thanksgiving. How have your family members handled it? How do you handle it? Do you just have your Christmas celebration at Thanksgiving or in between? How about just sending money as a Christmas present and being done with it? At our age (mid-60s) we are not as excited about the Christmas experience as we once were. It seems that it's becoming a more stressful time of the year for us and we'd prefer to just get away from it all and enjoy a warmer more relaxing climate. Are we alone with this line of thought?

the reaction of my daughter in law was "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE HERE FOR CHRISTMAS?!!!???"(this was 2011 the 1st year we did this) My grandkids were sad when we skyped (which saves.my.life!! couldn't live without Skype)

how I handled it? not well at all. I miss home at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We visited friends on Thanksgiving this year, and the whole time I was "I'm spending this holiday with someone ELSE'S family)

it won't be happening again, we're leaving later next year AFTER Thanksgiving. And, last year we flew home for Christmas the BEST CHRISTMAS i've ever HAD!!! I spent $$$ to do that, so I spent every waking moment, guilt free with my kids and grandkids <3 <3 <3


we WERE going to go to Disneyland this year, they were going to drive down and meet us there but it fell through, or I'd be flying home again. not sure where I'll be on Christmas, but I'll be sad :(

We used to leave after Xmas but risky driving conditions made us start leaving earlier. The children were not thrilled but understood and did not want to see us risk an accedent just for a few family hours on the 25th. We now have a family house party in late Oct. Then head south. As for dollars in the mail we now do an e-transfer which works really well for xmas as well as birthdays.

golfknut wrote:
Hi Mike,

This will be our second year of being gone for Christmas. Our situation is different from yours in that our two 30-something year old daughters (no grand kids) are married and live out of state but there is still the desire to be with them at Christmas. But we now know that being away is not a big deal and actually makes their lives less complicated at Christmas.

We thought it would be tough last year to not host the kids at home for Christmas but it actually worked out well. Both daughters felt relieved because of not having to spend time with both sides of their family at or near Christmas, especially the one in Texas as flights are expensive that time of year.

This year, as we did last year, we spent Thanksgiving weekend with our daughter who lives 5 hours away and celebrated two holidays on the same weekend.......Thanksgiving on Thursday and Christmas on Saturday. We were able to Skype with our other daughter while opening gifts and we all thought it worked out well.

We really enjoyed heading south under better road conditions in early to mid December last year and will do it again this year. It takes the stress out of hoping for a dry weather window between Christmas and New Years.

Next year we are discussing the idea of heading south right after Thanksgiving and flying up for 4 or 5 days either sometime just before Christmas or right at Christmas. Lately, I have seen some very good pricing for flights getting us up north and back south again before Christmas day and also if flying north on Christmas eve and returning south a couple days after.

We're feeling our way along. Like you we are early in our snowbird career and it seems our plans are still a work in progress but it's fun to plan and see what we like and don't like.

Well Mr. Golfknut, I think you're plan sounds kinda like what I'd like to do. Driving or flying? Flying is faster and possibly priced about the same. I'll have to look at those fares in comparison to diesel.

And don't forget your golf clubs when heading to Florida. I went out to the dome and hit some last week and plan to go again this week. Don't want to get too rusty.

Keep 'em in the middle of the fairway buddy! :C

Hi Mike,

This will be our second year of being gone for Christmas. Our situation is different from yours in that our two 30-something year old daughters (no grand kids) are married and live out of state but there is still the desire to be with them at Christmas. But we now know that being away is not a big deal and actually makes their lives less complicated at Christmas.

We thought it would be tough last year to not host the kids at home for Christmas but it actually worked out well. Both daughters felt relieved because of not having to spend time with both sides of their family at or near Christmas, especially the one in Texas as flights are expensive that time of year.

This year, as we did last year, we spent Thanksgiving weekend with our daughter who lives 5 hours away and celebrated two holidays on the same weekend.......Thanksgiving on Thursday and Christmas on Saturday. We were able to Skype with our other daughter while opening gifts and we all thought it worked out well.

We really enjoyed heading south under better road conditions in early to mid December last year and will do it again this year. It takes the stress out of hoping for a dry weather window between Christmas and New Years.

Next year we are discussing the idea of heading south right after Thanksgiving and flying up for 4 or 5 days either sometime just before Christmas or right at Christmas. Lately, I have seen some very good pricing for flights getting us up north and back south again before Christmas day and also if flying north on Christmas eve and returning south a couple days after.

We're feeling our way along. Like you we are early in our snowbird career and it seems our plans are still a work in progress but it's fun to plan and see what we like and don't like.

Lots of folks around here come in October, then fly or drive small car to Christmas meetings at family, then come back. We're driving our car to Texas to see the 'kids' for Christmas - rig stays in AZ while we're gone.