MACPC

Our Christmas traditions have changed over the years, and I'm happy to say, without a lot of angst!

We have three grown children - two of them have very different financial abilities [less] from the third child and from us. This was true even when the youngest was single - he has always outearned his siblings. We began giving a significant money gift to all three kids as a way of helping out the two less successful kids, and we also asked them to stop buying gifts for us. The only gifts we bought were for any kids in the family. It was understood, agreed upon, and appreciated that spending the day together with a great meal, a long walk, and games was our idea of how to celebrate Christmas.

Problem of shopping to find gifts for everyone: solved!

When our sons married, they spent Christmas with their out of town in-laws - which was never a problem for us, since they live in town with us and we have them all year. So we began the tradition of having our Christmas the week-end before Dec 25, when they were traveling.

Problem of which family to be with on Dec 24-25 - solved!

When our older grandkids were young, we still decorated the house from to bottom, and put up a huge tree. They are now high school and college aged and we have a new set of grandkids - one toddler and one on the way. We have the toddler with us one day of every week. His other grandparents live five hours away. This year, we'll be on our first Christmas cruise, so we've bought a new "surprise" for toddler every week for the past six weeks and spent all day playing with him and his new Christmas toys!

Problem of missing seeing him open his gifts and enjoying them with him - solved!

We both still work and the only down time from DH's multiple projects is between Christmas and New Years!

Problem of when to celebrate our upcoming 40th anniversary - solved!

Awesome review of HMC and cabanas - Thanks lilylight!

Great comprehensive review of HMC! Thanks for all the detail. The effort you put into laying this out is so helpful for first timers to HMC or to the cabana experience. Well done.

Maasdam - September 2004. We sailed two weeks after our son's wedding and we were celebrating my graduation with a Master's degree at the age of [gulp] 56 :D! We sailed from Boston to Montreal and the itinerary was significant because my ancestors were some of the original French settlers of Acadie [now known as Nova Scotia]. After 'Le Grande Derangement' [the exile of the French by the British in 1755] my ancestors resettled in Cajun land - south Louisiana. Most of my very large extended family are still rooted in LA. My DH took me to Texas when we married 40 yrs ago.

We planned to sail every year after that first trip - but got derailed several years with land trips to France, remodeling, grandbabies. Hoping to arrange our future with as many nights at sea as possible while still working.

We chose HAL after lots of online research about the difference in styles of the cruise lines. I have yet to read anything that makes me want to switch from HAL!!