Planning For Christmas

The Westman's are doing something different at Christmas this year - we're going to a cabin. Ever since we got married we Westmans have taken turns spending Christmas with our parents at their houses on alternating years. And by spending Christmas I mean actual Christmas, the 24th and 25th of December. We have absolutely loved these times but one thing always seemed missing - it was difficult to establish any holiday traditions of our own. So for a few years now we've played with the idea of doing a Westman Christmas with just our nuclear family. We'd still visit our parents of course and celebrate Christmas with them but we would do it before and after the actual day of Christmas.

Jobina was especially adamant that we needed to celebrate on our own sometime. I'm open to trying new things so I'd agree but when it came to actually telling our parents that we wanted to do Christmas on our own she would have second thoughts. Or as I called it "chickening out."

Sure enough Jobina was having second thoughts again (even though she gone so far as to tell our parents last year that we were considering a Christmas on our own) but I convinced her that we should just do it. And if we were going to do it, we should do it in style! So we called Falcon Trails Resort which is easily our favorite resort to escape to. They usually do three night minimums at Christmas but they had one cabin that ended up being available for two - so we booked it! To me staying in a beautiful cabin on a lake, chopping wood for the fire, enjoying the outdoor hot tub, XC skiing, and sleeping in a cabin is like my perfect Christmas. The kids are excited too - Riker is already planning to go exploring with me and wants us to build a snow fort together. I'm sure it was a little disappointing to our parents but they took it well. We tentatively plan to do a "Westman" family Christmas every three years, alternating with the parents on the other two.

What do you do for Christmas? How do you handle family traditions and expectations? And have you ever gone somewhere exotic/adventurous for Christmas and what was it like?