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Doing The Holidays From Afar

by Aimee Greeblemonkey -- Being Savvy Denver

My husband and I moved to Denver 15 years ago. In fact, we trekked to Denver in a U-Haul leaving right after New Years Day 1994, driving all the way from Baltimore, Maryland to the Rocky Mountains. It's been a tremendous change in many ways - but one thing we've had to get used to is being away from our families - all still back in Maryland - during the holidays. Sure, there have been a few here and there where we have been together, either in Colorado or Maryland, but the bulk have been apart.

We've developed some tricks to make things easier.

First, clearly the easiest, is the telephone. We do NOT use this sparingly during the holidays. There are calls to just say hi, calls to ask about recipe ingredients, calls to even listen to family members open special gifts.

Speaking of gifts! I have to say that is one HARD part of being apart for the holidays - being ahead of the game and getting all those packages done and back east way ahead of schedule!

Another way we communicate is through notes. Both handwritten in the form of Christmas cards (and not just one, several over the weeks of Christmas!) and of course, email. Declan, at 6, is now getting old enough to dash off little notes on his own, but before that we always included his drawings and hearts and smileys to make his grandparents know he was thinking of him.

And the latest, and funnest, is video chat. Sure, it was a bit of a technical challenge at first to get us all connected, but for everyone to actually SEE Declan's excitement as he talks about Christmas is worth the effort.

It almost feels like we are in the same room.

Almost.