We are almost halfway through our fifteenth year of fulltime RVing which means that we have spent a lot of holidays on the road. Most of them really aren’t family events, except for the two coming up, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for many RVers, they can be challenging.
Of course it’s easy if your family lives somewhere in the Sunbelt and you are wintering nearby. But what if they live in the frozen northland, or they are in Arizona while you are in Florida, as we are this winter? How do you handle that?
We know some snowbirds who wait until after the holidays to head south, and fulltimers who brave the weather to travel to be with family. While some take their RVs, others fly or travel by automobile, leaving their RVs in a park down south or out west. Our friends John and Kathy Huggins will be doing that in the next few days when they go to Maryland for family time with their sons and their families.
Some of our RVing friends actually do it in reverse, making arrangements for their family members to fly down south to be with them over the holidays.
Others of us choose to stay where we are to avoid holiday travel hassles. Many RV parks host Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, usually potlucks where the park supplies the ham or turkey and guests bring the rest.
Sometimes a small group of RVers will have their own holiday dinner, usually taking advantage of the warm weather to eat outside under an RV awning. It was at an event like this that we first tasted deep fried turkey. If you have not had this delight yet, do yourself a favor and try it. You won’t be disappointed.
Many times Terry and I have just gone out for a holiday dinner, leaving all the cooking and cleanup to somebody else. It’s become sort of a holiday tradition for several couples who are at the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve at Christmas to go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and I’m looking forward to it again this year.
How about you? How do you handle holidays on the road?
Today is your last chance to enter this week’s Free Drawing for an audiobook of Birdsongs by my friend Jason Deas. It’s the first book in Jason’s excellent Benny James mystery series, a fast-paced tale centered on former FBI agent Benny James, who hoped to retire to a slower paced lifestyle on a houseboat but finds himself drawn into a murder investigation. To enter, all you have to do is click on the Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening.
Thought For The Day – Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you.
Check Out Nick’s E-Books In Our E-Book Store
Click Here For Back Issues Of The Gypsy Journal
Click Here To Subscribe To The Gypsy Journal
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
This year we are set to serve at the homeless shelter….and a homemade turkey mayo sandwich with lettuce
and pc of pumpkin pie will await us at home!!
This year I will be fixing Thanksgiving Dinner for my Mom and Dad at our park in south Texas. Daddy has trouble walking now, so I didn’t want him to go to the hall for dinner. After all those years of fixing dinner for the kids and grandkids, they get to relax and have someone else do it. It will be my pleasure.
We are heading to Fort McCoy to spend Thanksgiving with the Boomers chapter. Great friends and good cheer.
I will be visiting the “Kids” for the holidays. Fortunately, I will have my own place to stay in so I’ll be able to maintain some independence and quiet. Chinese for the holidays sounds grand-I may do that myself; love Chinese food and the idea of not having to clean up is an even better one. Later I will have a hot turkey sandwich lots of gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce. A little holiday cheer by the fire and a long nap. Gee now I’m looking forward to the visit 🙂
We wait until after Christmas to take off to Florida. This year it’s hard since it’s gotten so nasty and cold so early.
But we stay here with my 85 year old mom and stepdad and to be with parents, kids and grandkids through Christmas. After that, we’re free to take off straight south! Yipee!
We usually do not spend the holidays with our kids, mainly is because neither live close. This year though we will have thanksgiving dinner here with our extended Escapee family. It is always a fun filled day with lots of food and great company. This year we will be heading up to Austin TX to spend our grandson first Christmeas with him. he will only be 9 months but we are excited to go. It helps that his dad is making the babies room into a bedroom for us, so we don’t have to hassle with getting motel reservation at a jacked up rate, there are no RV Parks in a close vicinity for us to take the rig.
We visit one daughter for Thanksgiving, staying in a nearby campground. During the Christmas holidays, we get together with our Kentucky family by traveling to them, and then gather with our children and their families in central AL, always staying at nearby campgrounds.