Holiday Travel Made Easier by Brenda Nixon

Holiday Travel can be fun, chaotic, memorable, a drag, stressful, or all these! When you travel with kids, it's all those and more; throw-up on the window, the rotten egg under the seat, fungus-covered "I don't know what that is," mismatched toys and hairbands, stale French Fries, and mountains of wadded-up candy wrappers.

When my girls were young we lived several states away from family. Holiday travel became a fine work of art in our home. Here are some ideas that helped us and might make your holiday car travel easier:

1. Check out books and games from your local public library for the drive.
2. Take frequent (every 3 hrs) breaks to let the kids run off steam.
3. Consider driving over-night while the kids are asleep (hopefully).
4. Play car games as a family.
5. Sing silly songs together (One trip our family of four, along with my sister-in-law, changed the lyrics of a familiar children's song. Today, we still laugh about it!)
6. Rotate seating. Allow each kid have a turn sitting in the front passenger seat.

Enjoy your holidaze in the car with your kids!

Brenda Nixon, http://www.brendanixon.com/
Co-Author, A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts

Online Shopping--You Never Have to "Drop"

Leslie’s Favorite Online Purchase

My favorite online Christmas gift just happens to include my children. And, NO, you can’t have my precious cherubs all the time, but I will loan them to you. Let me explain. Molly and Reese, my two youngest, are Barney kids. Yep, they’ve been featured performers (a fancy name for recurring cast members) on Barney & Friends for several years. Around our house, we love the big purple dinosaur and his buddies B.J., Baby Bop and Riff! (So much for SOCF blog readers believing me when I say I’m not the stage mom type!)

What does this have to do with gifts, you might ask? Good question. Well, they’ve also performed (And yes, that’s really them doing the singing, too. No dubbing.) in a couple of Barney DVD releases. These DVDs have become my favorite online purchase, Christmas or otherwise. I buy them for my friends with preschool children, even as a baby shower gift. (Kids grow up awfully fast!) Look for these titles at Walmart.com or Target.com.: “Let’s Go to the Firehouse” and “Barney’s Perfectly Purple Birthday.”

Added bonus: My husband, teenage son and I are extras in the fire station audience of the firehouse DVD. Though you have to pause the screen to be able to see us, we’re really there! I’m already threatening to show that segment as a blooper reel at my kids’ rehearsal dinners!

OK, OK, I realize the vast majority of you don’t have a preschooler who tenses with excitement when the Barney theme song comes on TV each morning. To that end, I have another online shopping suggestion.

My sister won rave reviews for her Item-of-the-Month purchases last Christmas. For a whole year, my oldest son (aka The Salsa Connoisseur) looked forward to receiving a different, delicious salsa of the month. Charlie’s true colors came out, though; he wouldn’t share!!! My youngest son couldn’t wait to get his Bacon-of-the-Month, which came packaged in freezer bags. (Visit http://www.gratefulpalate.com/ for more information.) Other mouth-watering offerings my sister unearthed included Coffee-of-the-Month and Fruit-of-the-Month.