It’s ‘that’ time of the year, when we make plans for our holidays. Whether it’s Christmas, Hanuka and the New Year’s Eve, most families are done planning and booking (if it’s the case) for these special days together. Some choose to stay at home and enjoy a meal with their loved ones, others are traveling even thousands of miles to various locations where they can meet 2014 in style.
In the past years we chose to spend the holidays at home. We’re not too big with celebration, to tell you the truth, so these days are just few days off our clients. I usually spend my time working on my portfolio, making business/life plans for the next year and just taking it slow (don’t think I work for 12 hours/day :)). We’re cooking what’s usually on the table all year long, with some seasonal additions. Not too many, since we don’t want to enter the new year with some excess weight.
Few exceptions to these rules were the New Year’s Eve between 2008-2009 (we spent it in one of our dearest places on Earth, Croatia) and 2011-2012 (when we were staying at my sister in law in Spain). Both were great times for us and, even if we didn’t go overboard with eating/gifting, the settings were tremendous in both cases.
This year we’ll clearly stay at home for few reasons: my belly is getting bigger and I don’t feel like driving/flying right now. I’ll be close to the 8th month that time and I don’t want to risk anything, not to mention that, if the little miss decides to come early, I want to be close to home and my doctor. Another reason would be that travel this time of the year is VERY expensive. We usually don’t go to any winter vacations (I hate the cold), but, when the little one will be older, we plan on taking her to skiing vacations.
This will happen after the holidays though, since the prices are back to normal. Since none of us two has a ‘regular’ job and we’re actually making our own plans, it’s easy for us to ignore the time most employees have their vacations and go when the prices are not as big as now. We have noticed that few days of travel during holidays would cost us close to what 3 weeks in Croatia during summer costs us. Well, I’d rather remain at home these days and spend 4-5 more days on the seaside for the same money.
So, belly and money are gonna keep us at home these holidays and we’re really happy about it. The plan is to keep our expenses as low as possible, so that we can save more aggressively for 2014. It’s gonna be a very challenging year (the summer holiday in Croatia is already planned, we have a baby on the way etc.), so we’d better be prepared for it.
What’s your plan for the holidays this year? Are you going somewhere? Will stay at home?
I am going to be staying home this year. Since I work in a promotions/marketing department and the holidays are our biggest time of year I will be working a lot this holiday. So it isn’t really a holiday for me but I will take some time to travel an hour south to see the family at some point. In January I get to make up for all the work with some time off…which I will probably use to work on my own projects. Work is my hobby as lame as that is!
I don’t see why having work as a hobby is such a lame thing. I think it’s ideal to love what you’re doing, as long as you still keep a little time for yourself/family 😉
We’re probably just going to stay home too… Baby Romanian will be close to 6 months old on Christmas, so he’s too young to party 🙂 Plus, it’s been a while since we spent the holidays at home and I want to get that “family” feeling 🙂
Well, having a small child is clearly a good reason to stay at home. Not to mention the prices now for various travel options are simply outrageous. I’d rather stay at home now and go to a summer vacation for the money that I’d spend for 3 days somewhere ‘nice’
We are going to stick around here and hopefully have my parents over. Before Christmas, we are going wedding dress shopping (me and my mom). It should be a nice quiet holiday!
oooh, wedding dress shopping. That’s clearly gonna be a great time 😉
That’s so exciting about getting into your 8th month! I will have a super quiet Thanksgiving all to myself this year. I don’t get Friday off, so I’m just going to take a day to myself to veg. I generally work during the holidays since I visit family off peak. If I ever have kids someday it will be nice to do more family stuff on the holidays though. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week!!
Yeah, it’s coming fast for you guys. For us these are ‘regular’ days, but you’re lucky to have on more holiday than we have 😉
I usually spend Christmas Eve with the BF’s family and he spends Christmas day with my family. I love that it’s nice and homey. I don’t think we’ve gone on a Christmas vacation merely for the fact that it’s pretty expensive to travel, as you said.
Prices during holidays are sky high most of the time, you’re so right. It’s better to schedule the vacations after the holidays (of course, if you can), you’ll pay less. Most of our friends who go skiing always go in January or February.