Filed under: Destination Camping & RV Resorts, Grandparent Hints and Tips, Holidays on the Road, Holidays on the Road

REARRANGING CHRISTMAS – How We Make it Work for All of Our Children!

Our children fit into the category of “Grown and Gone”.

We have two boys and two girls that have gifted us with seven beautiful grandchildren.  They not only have us, but another set of parents commonly referred to as “in-laws”. (I have often wondered if that made us “out-laws”?)

As many younger campers realize, having an expanded family can often create more than a little stress around Christmas.  Mom and Dad still want the kids to be at home Christmas Eve to wake up to gifts and filled stockings Christmas Morning.  The excitement and expectations displayed by the grandchildren bring pleasant memories back  to the grandparents.

When it is all said and done, it seems that the ones who feel the most left out are our grown children.  They want to establish their own Christmas traditions with their own children – and this does not necessarily mean going to one of their parent’s homes.

We solved the problem in part several years ago by celebrating the Agee family Christmas a week early.  It has worked out great!  The children now have Christmas free without guilt to observe it as they want.  We all still have the opportunity to be together and the grandchildren get to open gifts twice!

Not only does this give our children the opportunity to “do their own thing” on Christmas eve and day, but it gives Nancy and I the opportunity to hook the camper up and head to traditionally warmer weather anywhere from Myrtle Beach, SC to Orlando, Fl.

This year looked like the perfect opportunity to do just that.  We made plans back in early November to pull out on Monday, the 20^th of December, right after our local schools closed for their annual Christmas Break and we celebrated our family Christmas on Saturday.  This would allow us two entire weeks to bask in the Florida sun and forget about the chills of Virginia’s winter winds.

Mother Nature didn’t agree with our plans.  On Wednesday, December 15^th, an Artic blast of cold air swept through the south, bringing extremely cold temperatures to our planned destination.  Thursday we were blessed with a snowstorm that closed local schools two days early.  I kept hoping the cold front would only be temporary, but it was not to be.

Cold air has continued to haunt the eastern United States.   To add to the problem, the local weather forecast is calling for the possibility of “The Perfect Storm” sweeping in from the south (where we intended to be) and bringing as much as a foot of new snow to the east coast Sunday.

We have decided to just stay at home this year.  There is no point spending the time and money to travel south just to be as cold (or colder) than we are here.

We are both disappointed, but we have each other and a beautiful family to be thankful for.

Spring camping and traveling weather is not that far away.  It will be here before we know it.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you great campers and your families.

Randy, Nancy and Oscar Agee

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