Grasshopper New Media Presents...

This year, we started what I hope is a new tradition. We took a brief overnight getaway, with our kids, out of town. We walked around. We went to museums. We swam in the hotel pool and ordered room service. It was amazingly restful and fun. All of this a mere 4 days before my Mom comes to our home for Christmas.

This probably seems insane to most people, and it seemed a little impromptu and impetuous to me as well. But instead of spending the whole weekend stressing over holiday stuff, we spent time enjoying our family and recharging the batteries before the stress of the holiday sinks in.

The best part of all had to be actually finding fun and quirky gifts for folks in a museum gift store, rather than scouring the mall for one more “thing” to give someone. The items were fun and silly- from a book on cat yoga for Matt’s sister, the yoga guru in the family, and a Chinese/Japanese calligraphy set for my brother, who spent some time in Japan, and really enjoyed learning how to make the characters when he was there. This is not something you run across in the mall, but a perfect thing to find at an Asian art museum you never thought you’d end up in, but did anyway.

It was a weekend filled with serendipitous surprises, and did more to make me feel Christmas-y inside than any other holiday event I’ve been to.

Going away for the weekend may not be in everybody’s budget, bu I think finding your own special way to de-stress before the holidays is important. Maybe it’s a lunch out with friends, or spending time doing absolutely nothing constructive for once. Maybe it’s getting a pedicure, or taking only one child to a special toy store, or on a special day out, just the two of you. Whatever it might be, these moments of magic before the wrapping and chopping and baking and entertaining set in for real, is not just a nice thing- I think it’s necessary.

While I may have missed baking time, it will also probably prevent me from going overboard as I usually do at the holidays, which will be a blessed relief to everyone, including myself. Rather than adding more activities to my list, I had to subtract some for once, and be okay with that. And it worked wonders for me. I feel happy and relaxed, and a bit more prepared, mentally, for the chaos of the next two weeks.

Keep your fingers crossed it lasts!

by Whitney Hoffman

[tags]vacation, family, getaway, hotel, pool, museums, walking, resting, room service, relaxing, recharging[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by marirs, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved