Holidays during November and December « Back to Group Discussions

[Sol_y_Paz]

Any plans?  Traveling with your new baby to visit lots of people?  

[sallyrae17]

Yeesh. I'm totally planning to NOT travel. None of my family lives nearby, but I've done the "extensive travel with babe all over the state in two weeks" thing once before and I'm not doing it again - especially in the winter in MN. We haven't exactly decided what we're going to do for the holidays, but we're kind of leaning towards staying home by ourselves as a family of four. 

[pennywhistle]

My parents live 5 minutes away, so we're going to do all our holidays with them.  I am SO grateful to not have to travel!

[Veritas Vitae]

We will be traveling to B's parents, who live by his aunt and uncle. It is a 5 hour drive.

[monkeyscience]

Staying in town for Thanksgiving with our families (may succeed in combining into one, if dh's family doesn't have out-of-town guests). We considered flying to see aging grandparents (baby's great-gps), but tickets are ridiculously expensive. That actually seems to be the case any time of year, unfortunately. Christmas will be in town again, probably mostly with dh's family, because my family is going to Hawaii for New Year's. Pretty excited about that. Dh has never been, and I've only been once. Plus, baby will get to meet his cousins for the first time (they moved to MI just a couple of weeks before he was born). Have to say I'm apprehensive about the long flight. But after having taken both an hour and a half flight and a 4-hour road trip with the baby, I have to say I prefer flying. It's useful to be able to see, hold, and feed him while traveling. I ended up moving to the back seat of the car yesterday to try to keep him from having a meltdown. Sort of worked! Not looking forward to the return drive Friday. (We've been traveling with dh while he travels for work, do he doesn't completely miss the baby's first two months - he's been assigned to travel four of the post 8 weeks.)

Excuse any weird typos - I'm going against my usual inclination and posting from my phone.
Edited by monkeyscience - 10/9/12 at 1:49pm

[Veritas Vitae]

I'm thinking about traveling with B for work if he is working in state. It isn't an option when he flies, but it looks like after the next two and a half weeks he will be working closer to home.

[monkeyscience]

VV - It's not usually an option for us to fly with him, either, due to cost. We did fly with him to OK because it was cheap and we could use frequent flier points. Plus, we lived there for 2 months last year, so I had people to visit in the area. Hotel living with a baby and no car (what I'm doing this week) is less ideal. Luckily, I was able to stay at my parents' for the two weeks he was gone without us. I don't think there's anyway I would have survived, psychologically, being the 24/7 caregiver for the baby during that time. Honestly, my family was a lot more help than dh is when he's home (both because they were around more and because they're more experienced with babies), but I still missed having dh around!

[Veritas Vitae]

I've been contemplating driving down to stay with B's parents for a couple days while he is gone. But it is a 5 hour drive, so not sure I want to make it by myself. His mom would be such a help though, and they would love to see Quinn.

[Sol_y_Paz]

I am still unsure of what we will be doing due to the logistics of traveling.  We have never stayed at home and did a low key holiday for any holiday, but I do think that would be nice.