Happier Family Holidays

A homemade gingerbread house will not survive a 1,200 mile road trip.

Heck, a gingerbread house can barely survive the six-foot move from the kitchen table to the counter.

So what am I supposed to do about the gingerbread houses that have been a centerpiece of our Christmas Eve tradition since our grandchildren started arriving on the scene? Every year since 2014, we've produced a subdivision of houses, decorated with gumdrops and candy canes, with more enthusiasm than skill, by an ever-growing clan of preschoolers.

Now, those children have been relocated by their parents and we must figure out how to put our Christmas traditions on the road. Rendezvousing for year-end holidays is a completely different proposition than hosting the annual extravaganza at our house, where we can schedule the chaos around our needs alongside the kids.  

Chances are that many families are facing similar dilemmas. The past three years have seen young families take their jobs with them to small towns and cities, in pursuit of affordable real estate and sustainable lifestyles. Last year saw a 40% rise in holiday travel and the momentum continued this year.

Family-centered travel continues as the top priority: Like my husband and me,  many will deck out their cars as sleighs to bring new versions of the holidays to family flung in new directions. How do we all stay merry outside the frame of our holiday rhythm?

There's just as much value in what we leave behind as in what we bring with us, says Dr. Rehan Aziz, a geriatric psychiatrist with the Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

"Older adults are often seen as the leaders in families, and they set the tone for conversations," he says. "If you think of yourself that way, it takes pressure off you to perform. It can let you step outside yourself."

I thought about that as I bought and wrapped, in September, stocking stuffers and presents, in that my daughter and her husband were engrossed in their new positions and more than happy to let me take over the purportedly fun chores. Was I being flexible or perpetuating my position as Mrs. Santa?

Usually, at this point in the year, I am nearly overwhelmed by my own boundless ambitions for making gifts: doll accessories, quilts patched with roads and landscapes for little trucks, and entire dollhouse landscapes. I'm usually scouring the internet for obscure craft supplies for the mid-November ornament-making blowout, which results in mysterious combinations of glue and glitter in the process of making those always-so-important memories.

And I do like buying and wrapping gifts. I felt comradeship with my daughter as we swapped digital photos of the loot as it arrived from online and on-site stores, as dictated by her emailed lists.

Yet, it was also freeing to realize that the limitations of packing and hauling boxes of gifts halfway across the country eliminated some aspects of generosity that bordered on the …dare I say it…tedious. Our daughter and her husband scaled down their household to move. This year's haul is about curation, not accumulation. Potentially, I could have absorbed that shift in perspective had they not moved, but probably not.

Retooling the holidays has an unexpected upside, according to Elaine Rodino, a PhD psychologist in private practice and the grandmother of one. "It's a neutral setting, where you can appreciate your kids as parents," she says, without the burden of reinforcing house rules…just the basic guidelines for civilized living. An open schedule is a chance to collaborate with adult children instead of just fall into habits, even cherished traditions, she added.

A new-to-all setting is the perfect chance to remix the fun of being together with maybe fewer chores and new forms of refreshment for we adults.

"The very most important thing is that the grandparent needs to figure out a way to have time for him or her self, most times people sacrifice and you don't want to do that and feel resentful. You have to somehow have to orchestrate it," says author Nancy K. Schlossberg. 

I kept her advice in mind as we rounded up final travel arrangements.

It was tempting to rent one huge house, but if we need to pace ourselves away from home as well as we did when we hosted, we'd need clear delineations of space. Yet, we also wanted as much time as we could get with the kids, including bedtime reading. We split the difference: five nights in our own hotel room adjacent to the San Antonio riverwalk and three more all together in a townhouse at the Horseshoe Bay a couple of hours north, in the Texas hill country.

With the kids and their parents at a nearby apartment rental in San Antonio, we'll have a kitchen for a scaled-down gingerbread fest, decorating cookies, not houses. We'll save the less-messy scrapbooking projects for the townhouse.

And I've hard-wired pacing into our time at Horseshoe Bay. Though it's pricey, at $200 for four kids for just one afternoon, they'll be off to the onsite kids' camp so that their parents and we adults can go our separate ways. My separate way is set: the spa, where I've booked a facial and intend to occupy a chaise as long as I can.

In late December, when we drive away from the scene of my many  DIY crimes, we drive into the essence of what all my activity strove for: just being with our children and their children, doing easy things together like walking along the San Antonio river and actually playing with the things I just put in their stockings. Making memories can be its own form of tyranny, especially when embedded in the habits dictated by place.

That explains why I am not mourning the gingerbread house tradition as much as I thought I would.  It's an easy sacrifice for the anticipation of exploring a new place together – a new tradition that will carry us into the teen years and beyond, in ways that home-based holidays can't.

Joanne Cleaver is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, N.C. She covers women's issues, travel, entrepreneurship, financial planning and retirement readiness. She has authored seven nonfiction books, the most recent being The Career Lattice: Combat Brain Drain, Improve Company Culture, and Attract Top Talent. Read More