"Thanksmas"

When my family started to spread out a little bit more and some of us had other parts of family to get together with, it became a little bit difficult to be together ON Christmas or Thanksgiving all together every year. One year, we came up with a date that fell somewhere in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and we endearingly named it "Thanksmas". This year, that date actually fell after Christmas and we decided to try and meet in the middle (both of my brothers and families living in North Carolina) in Washington D.C. for a family weekend. We've learned through the years that you can make a holiday happen whenever you want it to and so this year, Thanksmas in D.C. was our holiday.

 

After some debate, Chris and I decided to leave with the kids after school on Friday to prevent us from having to get up too early on Saturday. Everyone stayed awake the entire trip until Cody fell asleep with only a short distance to go. Apparently, that was enough of a power nap and we couldn't get him to go down until after midnight sometime and we had to let him cry it out with hopes he wouldn't wake Colin or Kailey.

 

Thankfully we had an adjoining room with my parents so Chis and I walked the hallway with him and when that didn't work, I took him for a long walk in the underground mall of the hotel (which didn't work either).

Thankfully the repercussions of a late night were minimal the next day while we were out and about. We all boarded the Metro and visited the Museum of Natural History, some of the monuments and the White House which Kailey named the "United States House". 

 

 

In search of the "perfect spot" for a family photo, we decided on a location at the bottom of the hill from the Washington Monument and found someone we deemed trustworthy to take the photo. It was a great shot of the family but we realized afterwards that she actually missed the entire monument. We really could have been anywhere in that photo.

 



After some downtime back at the hotel, we had a big family dinner out and then spent the night back at the hotel together playing games and exchanging gifts. It was nice there was the option for the adjoining rooms so we could put the kids down and then still hang out with the rest of the family.

 

There were some challenges traveling with three young children (that in itself is worthy of its own blog post) but overall it was such a wonderful "Thanksmas". Holidays with family are what you make of them and WHEN you make them...