Holiday Travel
Traveling with two little ones can be exhausting. But we have found that we must push through the exhaustion or we will never go anywhere. This Thanksgiving break we are traveling to Chico and the Bay Area to spend the holiday week with friends and family. I am grateful that I am able to take the week off work so we can make the most of the holiday week with a little adventure.
We are spending a few days in Chico, enjoying the cooler weather and the beautiful Fall leaves (we typically try to visit Chico when it’s warm so we can go swimming). We will put together a small ‘Friendsgiving’ with a few friends, and from there we will spend time with my mom’s family in the Bay Area.
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday — a time to get together with loved ones and eat delicious food, with no expectations or pressure to spend money on gifts. I find that it is the one holiday where people typically make the extra effort to get together - that, and Easter (another favorite). My cup is so full when I can spend time with so many of my family members together.
After Thanksgiving, we will spend a day or so with Travis’s sister and her family in San Francisco, where we will kick the Christmas season off by visiting the tree in Union Square. It will be a quick visit with them, but it’s nice that we have the opportunity to see several groups of friends and family throughout the week.
It’s a lot of moving parts — traveling here there and what feels like everywhere. But, I find that one of the more tiring parts of travel is the anxiety that comes beforehand. Thinking and planning about all said moving parts — envisioning crying kids in the backseat, pit stops, hours in the car, packing. But once we make it to the destination, it’s always worth it.
We focus on what’s important and that’s spending time with our loved ones. We remember that it’s always fun, and we cherish the memories of the vacations we take together. This is part of what makes life adventurous. And although staying home can feel welcoming (and sometimes it is the right choice), if we don’t make the travel plans, we won’t have the exciting and diverse experiences that traveling as a family provides.
