Parenting Guru: We're not spending Christmas in the car!

[Editor's note: This month, Shine Parenting Gurus are sharing their tips on how they get through the holiday season without losing their wits and patience. Have a tip to add? Join in!]

The holidays are a time of celebration and togetherness. The idea sounds simple, right? Not in my experience.

My husband and I are both children of divorce and while it meant we scored twice the gifts at Christmas as children, as adults it meant trekking all over the planet to visit parent, after parent, after parent, after parent. And that was just our parents! If you've ever spent the better part of Christmas Day stuck in gridlock, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I vividly remember Christmas with our newborn who was famous for projectile vomiting (yeah, really). We traveled from house, to house (to house, to house) to spread our usual holiday cheer. Two projectile vomiting incidents, 3 changes of clothes and 4 houses later we finally made our way home, completely defeated and utterly Scroogey. We fought Christmas and Christmas won. It seemed Baby's First Christmas was wonderful for everyone; everyone but us anyway. The very notion of doing it all over again in a mere 364 more days was enough to cancel Christmas altogether.

We decided we had been dutiful Christmas travelers long enough. Now that we had children it was time to establish our own, more relaxed traditions on Christmas Day. It wasn't personal, it was self-preservation. We wanted to be able to wake up without an alarm, marvel at Santa's generosity, take an obscene amount of video, make a huge breakfast and allow our kids to play with their toys. And because Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without family, we wanted to make sure we visited every last family member, but it wasn't all going to happen on December 25th .

I realized the Christmases we spent so divided were almost wasted. The moment we'd arrive, the visit would go something like this: "Hi, good to see you, here's your gift, we just ate, look at the time, we have to be at Mom's by 3, wish we could stay, we love you!" That wasn't Christmas at all!

I wanted to be able to sit back with my family, hear the stories behind the ornaments on their tree, admire their new drapes, eat their home-cooking and sing some really bad karaoke after a glass of wine. I wanted to enjoy my family and build lasting memories. That's what Christmas was all about.

Ever since Baby's First Christmas debacle, we decided we would spread out our visits on the weekends leading up to Christmas and New Year's. As an added bonus, my children never minded getting their presents early, in fact, they much prefer it. Go figure.

Minimizing the chaos of Christmas Day and spreading out the joy all month long has allowed us to focus on our family in a more purposeful and genuine way.

Wishing you and your family a blessed holiday season as we gear up for our month long of Christmas celebrations; cheers!

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