Travel much?

This weekend started the beginning of holiday traveling.

I think it's a VERY economical way to get as many days as possible and only burning 3 days of vacation. But this is only for folks whose company specifies the after Thanksgiving as an official company holiday. But for some people they are able to get 9 full days away (if they left on Friday, Nov 16)! For those of you with VERY limited vacation days, that is a total SCORE!

My MIL always bellyaches that she only gets Thanksgiving off. She always has had to work the day after Thanksgiving. But she works for a newspaper and she's worked for them for 20 years? Maybe if she actually took the time and looked for another place that has a more extensive holiday schedule? Yeah, too logical. The Hubs' previous job gave him the day after Thanksgiving off. His new one doesn't. He actually has to burn a vacation day to have this coming Friday off. Why? Because we'll be out-of-town.

We're driving up to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We're actually driving up on Thanksgiving since it's only 1.5 hours away. Then the Hubs, the Bear, and my FIL will be going to a football game. So...we'll be spending the night up there. But NOT at my MILs. Good God people! You know how we feel about that! We've got reservations at a hotel. While the boys are at the football game, the Princess and I will do some shopping. Have some girl time. And no. My MIL is not invited in on girl time.

On Friday, we'll be stopping by the mall that's located near our old house and visit Santa. He's the BEST looking Santa that I've seen in Arizona. He's really sweet too. Soft voice and REAL beard. No creepiness about him. You know what I'm talking about? This guy does this gig every year -- since the mall opened 8 years ago. He's the first Santa that the Princess got to know when she was a baby.

Anyway, are YOU and your family traveling to meet up with family this Thanksgiving? OR just traveling to somewhere warm so you can get away before you're snowed in for the rest of winter?

Once we get through this week, we'll be ironing out what we're doing for Christmas. We're heading out to spend a couple days (or maybe a week?) at my folks house. If we do stay longer than 2 days then I need to figure out where we'll be taking the kids. When we only have 2 days there, we always focus on just hanging out with my family (and extended family/friends). But if we stay longer we've got time to see some sites. We've already done SeaWorld, LegoLand, and the Zoo. I'm thinking the Birch Aquarium and the Reuben Fleet Space Center for this visit.

Now have you got your Christmas all planned out?