For a variety of reasons that aren’t quite coincidence but aren’t incredibly intentional, either, I’ll be spending my third consecutive Christmas in Las Vegas. Mind you, this isn’t to get away from family – in fact, two of the three years will actually involve family being on the trip. The one link for all three years is that going away to a vacation destination has been easier and/or more fun than sitting at home and having a family gathering at someone’s house.
I’m sure I’m not the only one here traveling to a destination (as opposed to just going to a family member’s locale) this holiday season. I bet I’m not even the only person here with something of a tradition going in that regard.
So, tell me about where you’re going for an over-Christmas vacation this year, and what you’ve done in the past.
For a couple decades I’ve had the habit of staying home, or at most, going to a nearby friend’s house, for Christmas or New Year’s, so I’m staying at home.
But while I’m staying at home I’ll also be spending considerably time on the planet “Azeroth”, with perhaps a side trip to what’s left of “Draenor”, on Christmas weekend as I have been doing for about five years now. It’s traveling without having to worry about getting stranded at the airport.
Until I was 18, which is the year my grandfather and great-grandmother died and the extended family get-togethers with them, my answer would have been “I travel to a relative’s each year for Christmas,” but since then it’s “I never travel anywhere over Christmas.”
Christmas in Australia coincides with the long summer school holidays and is for many people the time they get to ‘go away’ for an extended break.
When my kids were younger, we’d always use this time to go camping…mostly to various national parks on the coast of Victoria or NSW. We’d head off either on Xmas Eve or Xmas Night (depending on what was happening for the Big Day) and spend the next two-three weeks cooking over a campfire, getting sunburnt and fighting away mozzies. Great times!!
Now that the kids are grown, The Bloke and I like to do much the same, but keep our travelling down now we tow a van. This year we’ll be heading up or downstream on the river to find a place that hasn’t been flooded out, and there we’ll camp for a few days with the dogs and the Aerogard.
Asimovian, welcome to Las Vegas!
Before we moved here, and my parents were living in Lake Havasu, we would come to Las Vegas the week before Christmas, and then drive down there for Christmas day.
The week before Christmas was usually quite nice here - no crowds, easy to get into shows and buffet lines, and we used to get comped by hotels just because nobody else would ever come here the week before Christmas. My joke was that you could roll a bowling ball down a casino and not hit anyone that week - and cocktail waitresses would practically hover over you, for lack of anything better to do. Now, the day after Christmas, all bets were off regarding deals - at least back then.
Now that we live here, the idea of going anywhere else for Christmas has never dawned on us. Why? Decent weather, plenty to do and see (especially at the local’s casinos) and I can’t imagine the hassle of traveling anywhere in that madness.
We typically either stay home, or travel to visit relatives. This year we are staying home. But one year, about four Christmases ago, we traveled to Colonial Williamsburg, VA. We had always wanted to ‘do’ Christmas in Williamsburg (they make a huge deal out of it), so we did it. We got a great package deal that got us (there were a total of five of us) a suite in one of the ‘official’ Colonial Williamsburg hotels, unlimited visitation to the Colonial Quarter, a walking tour of the ‘Decorations of Williamsburg’, plus lunch for all five of us at the nicest Colonial restaurant, all for about (IIRC) $900.00. Granted, we ended up spending more on Christmas that year than we normally do, but we made it clear to the kids that going on the trip was one of their Christmas gifts, and we had a great time!
Most years I travel to a neighboring state to hunt in their Xmas muzzleloader season. Usually meet up with some relatives and spend the entire week between Xmas and New Year’s eve. This year however, various females within the family are objecting for the typical reasons: (Males are having fun; Males are relaxing and even sitting down; Males are unsupervised and probably making a mess; Males are not suffering thru family gatherings, etc.). :rolleyes:
From our first married Christmas (1994) we vowed never to travel to family over Christmas. We like our own company too much and our families never did the big “get together” thing anyhow. So why force the issue?
Now, some years on, we have our own small children so a small family Christmas day is ideal.
so we never travel for the day itself but we do get stir crazy after a day so we like to have a trip straight after.
We are fairly frugal though (small house, boring car, not loads of prezzies) so it means we have spare cash for trips if we fancy it. This year we are going up to London for a few nights between Christmans and new year, should be fun. (and our frugality includes being picky about where we stop and when we go…we got 3 nights for £89)
Next year, just to contradict everything I just said, we have booked an apartment in Austria for 10 days over xmas day itself and we’ll drive there a few days before.
I am ludicrously excited! can there be anything better than Skiing on Xmas day?
I had to choose, “My answer isn’t covered by this poll” because it wasn’t set up for multiple answers.
Christmas day itself will be with my family-in-law, and then we’ll hit a tourist destination on the 26th. I don’t think I’d make the annual travel expense if I didn’t also plan to do something fun and interesting.
Based on observing my own family, I suspect it is not so much that the men are relaxing or sitting down, it’s that they’re doing so while the women are working their butts off in the kitchen. Unless men are contributing something to the effort of putting on a family gathering (helping to clean beforehand, helping to cook, helping to clean up, whatever) they are freeloading. Quite frustrating to put hours into cooking, have the men waltz in, inhale the food, then walk out again leaving the women to clean up the remnants and fix the kitchen without even a single offer to so much as to carry a few plates to the kitchen sink or dishwasher.
Family gatherings had a lot less friction when it was agreed that if the women cooked the men cleaned up and vice versa, after which everyone could sit down and relax and not just half of those present.
Of course, if you’re already helping out at least half the time then nevermind.
Personally, I think I’d be much more inclined to hang out with the muzzle-loading men, but being female I was continually sentenced to kitchen duty for family gatherings while growing up and still resent it to this day. I missed out on all the fun stuff - the conversations, the spontaneous sledding parties and snowball fights, and so on because me and the other [del]slaves[/del] women were too busy cookin’ and cleanin’ and servin’ and cleanin’ up after the Lords of the Manor.
My answer wasn’t covered, either - we really want to drive to Vegas for Christmas one of these years. I have no intention of EVER taking a plane trip around Christmas.
About two (long) days. We’ve done the drive two times already, and our only concern would be getting out of the snow zone without running into any blizzards.
Once my mom dies I won’t be going anywhere on Christmas. Until then, I still like getting presents so I’ll be traveling to her house. About 2 hours south of here.
You’ve got a point, and I admit to at least some of the above. We do tend to retire to the den after the meal. But in my (our) defense, tweren’t us guys who wanted such a major soiree. From what I can tell, it’s the gals who really get into the huge food prep scene. Most of us guys would be content with Kentucky Fried Chicken. I have won a slight concession this year, we’re getting the major portion of the meal prepared by a local BBQ. Maybe it’ll start a trend, and the gals can at least join us at the TV this year.
What do you normally do?