Christmas Plans

A lot of the people we've told about our plans for Christmas have thought we are so strange. I don't get it. A lot of people go out of town for Christmas.

We ran into our neighbors at Wal-Mart the other night as we were finishing up the kids present shopping, and they acted like it was so, so weird and said something about how we're skipping Christmas this year, just because we said we would be out of town and that I wasn't even putting up the Christmas trees at home this year. Have you seen the movie "Christmas With The Kranks"? We sort of feel like that.

Here is our plan:

We are leaving the weekend before Christmas and will visit my sisters in Arkansas for a day or two. Then, on Monday, we'll head to the condo in Branson that we have for the week. We'll stop and get some groceries on the way in, and then we'll get settled into the condo. I have the kids' Christmas trees to put up and decorate, along with their little nativity set.

The condo is a nice size, with a master bedroom with a King, another bedroom with 2 Queens, a queen fold-out bed in the living room, a double fold-out bed in the living room, a Murphy bed in the living room, 2 fireplaces, a fully-equipped kitchen, a private covered balcony with a grill and furniture, and two jetted tubs.

On Tuesday, we have reservations to have lunch with Santa in the reception hall at Silver Dollar City. The kids will get little gifts from Santa, as well as have their photo taken with him. Then, we'll get the kids changed out of their Christmas clothes and get bundled up for an afternoon at Silver Dollar City.

Wednesday, we will probably make our gingerbread house, and we'll make the cookies for Santa. Gigi and Grandpa are coming in that day (I think), and we'll go to the lights displays that night with them. (Other family was invited but declined the invitation. I actually thought "the aunts" in Arkansas would like to go since it's not far from home for them, but it looks like they aren't going.)

We'll have a nice Christmas morning. We were not going to get the kids any toys (just one present each from Santa and their stocking stuff), but we ended up getting one nice gift from Santa for each and one nice gift from us for each, plus their stocking stuff. Our main gift to them is just the trip to somewhere special and having a special kind of Christmas week. Branson is beautiful at Christmas, and hopefully we'll be able to do some fun stuff at Silver Dollar City (weather permitting).

We'll leave Friday and take our time on our way home.

We are really looking forward to the trip and doing something different this year. We may just do it every couple of years to mix things up a little.

So, that's the plan. I don't see what's so weird about not putting the trees up at home, when we'll be gone the whole week of Christmas. I don't have the trees up for that long anyway (usually two weeks before Christmas, and they're down a few days after Christmas).

K. I'm done explaining. Sorry I didn't get to the other blogs this weekend. Maybe later this week. It's a busy (stressful) week for my business. I'm really, really not looking forward to tomorrow's session with a newborn, a one-year-old boy, and a two-year-old boy. Fun for me! I'm actually looking forward to the newborn part, just not trying to get all three of them together.

Happy Monday!