Reasons to go on holiday this Christmas
The festive season. Time for reconnecting with the family, sitting indoors watching the Christmas specials and playing board games, right? Wrong!
Well, wrong for some of us. For some, Christmas means traipsing halfway across the country to see both sides of the family, negotiating personality clashes and being really, really bored of board games. A friend recently told me a story of her household’s infamous ‘Scrabblegate’ which saw all four members of her family in tears one Christmas Day after a minor dispute about the rules escalated into sobs and bitter recriminations.
Increasingly, people are taking control of the holiday season and spending it as far away from the traditional trappings of Christmas as possible. Somewhere warm and pleasant where rampant consumerism and necessity of cleaning up after an enormous meal can’t find you is usually preferable.
Tips for planning a Christmas break
- Since most of us only have a week or two at most off work during this time, you won’t want to spend half of it recovering from jetlag. Picking a short haul flight that will still get you somewhere warm is a good idea (think Tenerife, the Middle East, Egypt or Morocco).
- Remember that in the weeks leading up to Christmas you will be both preparing for a holiday and caught up in office parties, events and present-shopping for family and friends, so leave yourself plenty of time and plan things in advance. Think about bank closing times, post office queues and traffic or public transport on the way to the airport.
- If you are bringing kids, don’t forget to pack the presents. If the kids are young they will still want a visit from Santa – consider writing a letter to Santa informing him that you’ll be elsewhere, just to be sure.
- If you know you’ll still want a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, look into your hotel’s Christmas menu to ensure that they cater to your Christmas tastes to avoid disappointment.
- If you don’t mind much about the actual day, prices of flights drop dramatically if you travel on December 25th itself. Booking an evening flight means you can spend part of the day with family before zipping off to the airport on traffic-free roads.
Although Christmas is traditionally a time for – well, tradition – like all traditions it can be worth re-evaluating. If you don’t enjoy something about Christmas – the weather, the sense of obligation, the bad bon-bon jokes or the same old Christmas movies – then try something different! After all, it does come around every year.
Are you planning to go anywhere this Christmas?
Vivienne Egan is a writer for Thomson Local. Find travel agents in the UK with Thomson Local.
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