Traveling over the holidays is a pretty frequent event for a lot of families. If you will be traveling over the holidays and won’t be at home on the “big day” you may need to get a little creative in order to keep the spirit of Santa alive for your little ones. The magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child is such a wonderful thing to witness, you don’t want to miss out on that or ruin it simply because you will be traveling. There are ways to keep the magic alive for your kids and for you.

The big choice we have to make as parents is whether Santa will find us where we are or if he will leave all our presents at home under the tree awaiting our arrival home. How and where you are traveling may play a big part in which option you go with. No matter which way you decide to handle it you will need to be a little creative in order to pull it off.

If Santa Will Follow You: Of course, the gifts will need to be where you are on Christmas morning. This may require a little creativity on your part. You may need to hide them very well in your luggage, or consider mailing them to your destination so the kids are less likely to accidentally find them.

If Santa Will Leave Everything at Home: The trick with this option is making sure everything is under the tree and the stockings are stuffed when you walk through the door after your trip. One option is to have a close friend or family member take care of it while you are gone; or one of you can be busy inside getting everything set up while the other is busy getting the kids in the car. This option may work best if your kids will be getting gifts from family members while on vacation, so they don’t miss out on Christmas morning.

Right now we travel to see our families every Christmas. At some point we may decide to start doing it every other year so we can enjoy all the fun of Christmas morning at home. But, for now we need to decide which option we will go with. This year we are going to have Santa leave everything at home for us and see how that option works for us.

What do you do when you have to travel over the holidays? What do your kids think of it all?