Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year. I love the family gatherings, decorating, church, cool weather, and hot cocoa. Everything about Christmas is awesome...except that I have divorced parents and I married a man with divorced parents. I hold nothing against them for being divorced, and looking back on it know that it was probably the best thing for both couples. It just makes Christmas stressful. Having to choose one or two sets of parents to be with each year is always hard. We also live far from all of them so figuring out travel and all that goes along with that makes me want to pull my hair out. "We will stay with my mom till Christmas eve, then go to my dads till new years eve, then drive to another state to be with your mom for new years, and then go to your dads for a belated Christmas at the end of January." Can anyone sympathize?
Then two years ago Mr. Hubbs and I had a grand epiphany in the midst of our Christmas chaos. Why not rent a big friggin amazing house in the mountains somewhere between everyone and invite them to join US for the Holidays!? Now that was a great idea! All we would have to do is save up some dough to rent the house, send out fun invites to everyone, and BAM! Done! We could make a tradition of it, and choose a new awesome location every or every other year. If you can come, great! If you can't, oh well.
So last year we tried it out for a spin. Let me tell you, it was the best time ever! (Sorry for the excessive use of the exclamation mark. But this is exciting stuff.)
I searched a couple sites on the internet for homes for rent for vacations and settled on this one in woodland park.
http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p153678#calendar
It was a beautiful two story home, with lots of beds, a big wood burning stove, big kitchen, lots of stuff to do near by, but still secluded amongst pine trees, and very kid safe and friendly. Hey it even had a pool table and indoor hot tub! Bonus! There was a fire pit outside too! OK OK sorry. The price was awesome for a ten day get away in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.
My mom and dad still get along ok so they were welcome to come for all or part of the trip. My hubbs' folks are a little different so we invited one set to come the first four days, and the other set to come the last four. It worked out great. All of our siblings came from every corner of the universe. My brother in-law from Peru, my bro and his wife and son from North Dakota, and my step sis from Nebraska! It was crazy how much fun we had and how rested we felt. The great thing was that the only travel we had was getting there and back home. Then we could just be in one place all together for the rest of the time. We did venture out to local fun attractions like The North Pole http://santas-colo.com/ and went to a Christmas Eve service at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Renting the house was essentially our gift to everyone. This year a lot our family has offered to help pay for the house so we may be able to go somewhere even cooler.
I just wanted to throw out the idea to anyone who has had enough with intercontinental Christmas travel to ten different places over five days and losing your mind and health because of all the stress involved. I recommend this alternative. Even if you can't do it over Christmas, maybe try it for summer vacation or another obscure holiday. If you need some good sites to look for rental I would check out the sites bellow.
Homeaway.com
http://www.homeaway.com/
vrbo.com
http://www.vrbo.com/
Good luck with your holiday adventure!
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