GolfHos

Just curious what the married couples/families do for the holidays in terms of staying home v. traveling to family.  My wife and I decided to alternate parental homesteads (2-hour drive to hers, 9-hour drive to mine).  It's a Clive's-Folks Christmas this year.

For the traveling crowd, how do you handle presents?  Open before you leave?  Open when you return?  Haul all the crap with you and open it on the road?

travel for thanksgiving, home for Christmas. i insist.

Well since my folks are 2 miles away and her mom is 15 miles away I don't think I qualify to answer. However when I was young we always hauled gifts with us.

But unless you have a trailer for the bike I suggest USPS.

Glad to see you back. Got the Triple, eh? Nice. [sm_naughty]

The spacey clan has always done Christmas Eve, so at first we did Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with Hers (3ish hours north of here), but since she's been a nurse (or nsg student) she's had a hard time getting away from work on the holidays, so we don't do her parents place lately. Once she's got more seniority, I suspect that will change, particularly when grandchildren are in the mix.

We tend to exchange gifts between the two of us at home and only haul those that are for family members. Even then, we draw names so we're only hauling a couple of gifts.

Non applicable here as well.  The whole fam damily is within 15 miles.

The only exception is Karen's sister and husband that travel about 3 hours no matter who's house it's at.

They pack all the *feces* up, and then return with the the *feces* we give 'em.  Big ass Continental. Looks like the Grinch headed back up the mountain.

On the hauling presents point, I kinda meant for you folks with KIDS.  But I don't mind hearing about what the spouses do with the gifts, for that matter, so long as I don't have to look anything up on urbandictionary.com.


On our front: two years ago, when it was last Clive's family's turn, we flew instead of driving.  That made it difficult to take along all the gifts we had for one another and the young one, so we didn't.  Last year, we took some and left some at home.  This year ... we can't decide.

Extended family here.

It starts actually thanksgiving day for us with presents hauled 2 hours to my wifes "real" dad's house.

Christmas eve is spent with my mom and dad and niece and nephew at my house, my sister used to host, but she has moved. That set of presents are opened.

Christmas morning used to be spent with my wife's mom and dad, but dad died last year and mom lives in FLA for another couple of months. So now it's just the four of us,  that set of presents are opened.

It used to be a very grueling 24 to 36 hours, 15 years ago the Christmas morning part of it would take as much as much as 9 hours to finish, we would actually have a meal at the midway point and then resume. But people have moved and people have died and my folks are getting older and my kids are growing up and I don't know where I'm going with this.  :)

SLC v. Alabama v. Ohio v. Ireland v. Germany.

Easy peesey.  We stay in God's country and send everyone advent calendars.

I hear you on this part. When we at her mom's everyone is there, so there are 8 kids and 7 adults. Takes all day, especially if we do the one present at a time thing.

Yeah that's about right I think there used to be 8 adults and about 8 kids...whew...draining. Yup we did one present at a time...mandatory...had to see everyones reaction.

Clive:(http://skyjude.users.btopenworld.com/fletchuk/Images/1cvacation.jpg)                                      stroh:(http://www.myuseless-info.com/cousin_eddie.jpg)

[sm_laughatyou] That's funny as *feces* right there!

Well, I am part of a family... :D

Before we moved in with Grandma, we used to go over to my paternal grandparents on Christmas Eve.  (When I was really young my most of my dad's side would gather together for Christmas (Eve or Day), but the family tree outgrew that.)  On Christmas Day, we would be with my mom's side.  We'd open some presents on Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandma, some the morning of Christmas Day, and sometimes we'd bring a few with when we were with my mom's side.  It varied by year.

Now, we still spend Christmas Eve with Grandma; we just don't have to go anywhere.  And we still spend Christmas Day with my mom's side.  Typically, my mom's sister hosts it, which is an 1 1/2 hour drive for us.  Presents are opened mostly on Christmas Eve, but some are saved for the morning of Christmas Day. :)

I have worked probably 15 of the last 18 Christmas holidays, and since I hate it anyway, I hope to work again this year.  The couple of times I haven't worked, I have spent Christmas with my side of the family in Wisconsin and Massachusetts and neither time were gifts involved, just a lot of drinking and family infighting.   

i can get drunk anywhere i guess
 [sm_devil]

Christmas is with the wife's family (5 minutes away).  My family travels a lot, so they're not often sure where they'll be for the holidays.  I'll fly in to visit them this year for a weekend around Dec 8th though.

No kids, but presents with the wife are exchanged either at our place on Christmas eve or in the morning before heading over to the in-laws.

My mom visits from Florida every year.   My in-laws live 4 hours away and we have yet to go there for Christmas.

We just stay home for Christmas.  My family is 5 hours away, hers 9.  The kids would much rather stay home.  We do go to my family for Thanksgiving.  Her sisters usually come for our oldest son's birthday in January.

No solid plans yet. We'll visit my folks either the 22nd/23rd or 29th/30th. We do Christmas Eve and Christmas Day morning at our house and then typically go to Susan's folks for Christmas Day (90 minutes away).

It's worked well for the past few years. My Mom is very flexible on the dates but she does like to host the event. Which is cool.

Fuzzy family presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve with "Santa" presents on Christmas morning. That's just how we roll.

My in laws live 45 minutes away and my parents live 15 minutes.  Most of my immediate family lives here and her extended family lives in Nashville.  She used to always go there for Christmas but this year we'll probably skip with her being in school.  

My parent's always do the family xmas eve stuff so no traveling for me.  I bet next year we go visit her family in Nashville at some point during the holiday.  The boy is still too young to understand the whole presents thing so no traditions in that regard yet.  

'Cept maybe as a walk-up to the Squatters bar.

We have a open house on Christmas Eve.  Lay on a ham or two, a bunch of sides and a big pot of wassail.  Easily the softest buzz possible.  By 8:00 I have the biggest smile of the year and I'm trying to figure out HTF I'm going to put that ping-pong table together correctly.

ditto

One year we spent Christmas in Hawaii.  We brought a few small presents for the kids to give to them out there.  Before leaving for the airport, we tricked the kids out of the house and put out all their presents, then locked the door behind us and headed out for the vacation. 

When we returned home, the kids walked into the house and basically saw this as proof that Santa is real, being as how there was NO WAY their parents could have put out all the presents, since we were in Hawaii for Christmas eve. 

It had a big impact.  To this day, I'm still not sure Blader Jr has completely given up the notion that Santa is real.  We haven't talked about it in a while, but for a few years after the trip, he'd always use that incident in a simple, matter of fact way, to defend the existence of Santa whenever it came up.

LOL

Did it provide for an extremely exhilarating copulatory experience?

I'm not at all sure what you are talking about, but the answer is 'yes' for the simple reason that I can't think of a copulatory experience that wasn't extremely exhilarating.  What would be the point, otherwise?

Touchy.

No kids myself, but I have relatives with kids that do the whole stay with one side of the family, then fly immediately to the other side, and somehow Santa finds the kids in there somewhere.

What they do is let the grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc give gifts to the kids when they visit.  If they happen to be visiting over Christmas morning, they bring stockings for the kids, but no gifts from Santa.  Santa leaves the presents at their house, along with the parents' gifts to the kids. 

Since the non-parent portion of each side of the family is big enough to completely overwhelm the children with toys and goodies (not to mention completely fill the parents' suitcases), the kids don't seem to feel like they have a skimpy Christmas.  And, they do something special at home with the parents' gifts and Santa's gifts, just the immediate family.

"Touchy" is covered in Blader's definitive copulation tome (Chapter 7: "Was That A Knuckle?").

I think what Clive meant to say was...

...Touché

You're welcome.

I a little bit worried about Christmas this year!
You know, family dramas etc,etc,etc!!!!!
I am hoping and wishing and even praying that Santa has my crazy psycho SIL, deported back to England, so the whole family can have a nice peaceful, happy Christmas!!! ;D ;D ;D

You have one too? I have 3, although most of the time they are sane they all can be nuts. And when they are all on at the same time? Us guys just go to Hooters (or Million Dollar Saloon).

I worry, too, about people that observe Christmas in the middle of summer.

California.snowmen.surrender

You see, this is where you have it wrong, it is perfect weather for drinking beer and playing golf!!!!!!!!!  What more could you ask for Christmas!!!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

boobies.

;D ;D ;D ;D


Well Stroh, if you are a good boy, you never know what Santa will bring you!!! ;D ;D ;D

Brian.Zembic.surrenders

You know, dude;  You and I gotta be neck and neck in other people thinkin'  WTF?

I just had to google Brian Zembic, to work out what Clive was talking about! ;D ;D ;D

Now I get it! ;D ;D ;D ;D

I am an encyclopedia of man-boobies information.

Richard Speck surrenders.

Wow!  See that's difference between you and I.  I would have just gone for the McPhillson cheap shot.

You're good. ;)

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