We are traveling this Christmas to see family across country. Kids are expecting a visit from Kris Kringle. How do you handle that? The idea of shipping all that stuff home is daunting! Thanks! Harper
Can you do a lot of your shopping online, and have them delivered to the family cross country?? Don't tell my kids, but I do a lot online and have it delivered to my neighbor's house.
Maybe pick one or two presents that they can open from Santa Claus where you are staying and then have Santa write a note to tell them that the rest of their Christmas presents are waiting for them for when they return home?
When do you want the visit? Are you OK with it when you return? If yes, have someone put them out for you while you are away. Just tell the kids that Santa delivered at home.
Santa doesn't have to bring every present. Can he bring some items that you can either bring with or have delivered to your ultimate destination?
Could Santa bring things to use on your trip? I am thinking tickets to the zoo or another attraction? Beach towels? Could you explain that you had to leave your presents at home so they only get to open Santa presents there and then open yours at home or vice versa? Traveling with lots of presents can be a pain. I don't think you can take wrapped presents on a plane?
http://designeditor.typepad.com/design_editor/2011/11/free-download-santas-stationery.html I found this Santa stationary and thought of this post. I don't know if it will help?
Being Catholic, St. Nicholas always brought presents on St. Nicholas day and Santa brought stocking items on Dec. 25th. THe stocking things were always small inexpensive things and fruit.
How old are your kids? Could you wrap up pictures of the items and leave a note from Santa that the actual items are waiting at home? I traveled at Christmas last year when my daughter was almost 3. We did Santa gifts when we got home. She just thought Christmas was several days long . If yours are young enough, this could work!
Thank you all for the great ideas. @ agdamity, kids are too old, but that would have worked for us then! @k1 - great idea with stationary, that might help! I am all for online ordering, I just don't want to lug it all back home with us after shipping it to family. But, for a few gifts that might be ok. I like the tickets/ stuff to do gifts as well. Great idea! I'll need to give this more thought, but having most of Santa presents waiting back home might be the way to go. They will be getting spoiled rotten by relatives anyway! Thanks for all the great ideas. I'd love to hear any other creative solutions!
Allow time to do all or most of your shopping & buying wrapping paper all on that end, so you're lugging very little or nothing extra.
Maybe bring the stockings and have a little box in there wrapped explaining that the gifts are at home. The presents are nice...but my main tradition is the stockings!!!!
If you are going to leave them at home, I would start hinting at that now. "Santa will probably deliver your gifts at here while we are visiting XYZ and you can open them when we get back. That Santa is so smart - then we won't have to back them all up to get them home!" Otherwise it could be disappointing to wake up with no presents. Then maybe Santa can surprise them with one gift and a note that says "I hope you enjoy this gift on Christmas Day. I knew you were travelling so the rest of the gifts are waiting at home." If they are going to also be getting gifts from relatives, I would imagine this would be ok. Now, if there are other kids that you are visiting and they are going to be opening a boatload of presents and your kids will only have one, this might be hard to handle. In my family, Santa brought all the presents except ones we got each other as siblings and we would buy presents for our parents. I remember asking my mom and dad why they never bought us presents for Christmas. lol.
I would have them write a letter to Santa to explain the "situation" so that they know a plan is in place for the presents to be at home when they get back.
All very good ideas and observations! No other kids around, so that's not a worry. I like TeacherNY's idea of THEM writing to SC to explain the situation! I think we I'll do the stocking and one Santa gift with the pre-arranged explanation that the rest are at home. Having that little bought online and shipped (thank you Amazon!) will be easy and not as hard to get back home on the plane. Thank you all for the great plan! Harper
TeacherNY, that's brilliant!!! Come up with the idea that they write Santa, telling him that they'll be away, and asking him to deliver the gifts to their home anyway-- maybe even apologize for the lack of milk and cookies. Then I wouldn't be surprised if Santa replied with an "OK, I'll do that, have a Merry Christmas" kind of letter himself!
If you're feeling really creative, you can mail the letter from Santa to North Pole, AK, so that it gets an official North Pole postmark. We used to do this when my kids were younger.
I know that when I visited extended family (thousands of miles away) when I was little my parents always told me that was part of my gift. Also, twice they surprised us by taking us to Disneyland on the way back. We didn't know until we showed up at Disneyland! I only got 2-3 small presents, but those Christmases I are the ones that I remember the most. DVDs and books are very cheap to ship via Media Mail, if you don't want to lug everything back. I definitely second the tickets/ stuff to do idea.
