Living a 10 hour car ride from my folks and a 7 hour car ride from Tim’s folks makes it hard to travel for every Holiday. Especially holidays that are celebrated on a Thursday or Sunday. Turkey Day Thursday means Tim and the boys missing work/school on Wednesday since travelling to family is a full day event. Same goes for taking Easter Monday off. All those extra days add up quick. We really like to be able to take a good chunk of time every summer to “Staycation” in the cities and we love having an extra long Christmas break so we hoard Tim’s vacation days. Because of that we have not traveled for a Thanksgiving since moving to the cities and this year marked our second year of not travelling on Easter. You know what? We kind of like it.
Don’t get me wrong family but there is something exciting and wonderful about celebrating those holidays as a small family unit. We are putting our own stamp on the holidays and are slowly building our own family traditions. We haven’t cast aside all the family traditions that we grew up with by any means. Turkey Day will always be about the Macy’s Parade and the Purina Dog show (we were not a football family) just like it was in my family. The Easter Bunny will always visit our home (also my family). We will always get dressed up in our Sunday best for Easter services (both our families). But now instead of painting on egg shells we actually eat dyed hard-boiled eggs. We made Birds Nest cupcakes. Will we do these every year? Time will tell, but it is fun creating our own traditions.
Not travelling on the holidays makes it more relaxing. Is it as fun? Sometimes. It is always great to see our kids play with their cousins, especially now that all the kiddos are getting older and the age gap doesn’t seem as big, but it is also great to not have bags to pack clothes, prep snacks for car rides and to answer “How much longer?” all the way from Albertville, MN to Hillsboro, ND at which point we have lost our patience and force them to start playing the quiet game. We love late night board games when the kids go to bed but watching the new Game of Thrones was good too.
Here are a few photos from this years Easter. My folks live 10 hours away but Auntie Buff only lives 2.5 hours away. She has become like a third parent to the kids. I will never be able to express to her what having her in my kids life in such an active way means to me. The kids respect her and love her. She is fun but isn’t afraid to discipline. She has been such a wonderful Aunt.
they turned out super cute but Elise quickly discovered that eating them proved to be more than a little challenging.
And some of the coldest family photos I have ever forced the kids to smile through.
”Smile and we can go inside.”
”Smile nice and we can go inside.”
“One with Mom and Dad and you are done.”
