Christmas Morning for 2.5 Yr Old When Traveling? What Do You Do?

I quit the travelling thing once I had kids. Most people do. It's like you said, the preparation to get there, the stay, the drive home, the unpack...... its flippin exhausting and really takes away some of the "JOY" of the season.
I would now start the "new tradition" for your little family. You do NOT have to be somewhere visiting on the actual day of the holiday. The season is lengthy enough to fit visits in where they are comfortable. We did most of our out of town visiting AFTER Christmas day and BEFORE New Years Eve. The traffic isnt as bad and you have the story to tell of how Christmas morning went at your house this year. The family will live without you. When the kids all get much older and you all agree that Christmas morning is no longer the giddy, exciting, fantasy filled, Santa bash that it once was, you can then choose to go back to some of the old visiting traditions of the past. I never did tho.... I never looked back, we were always home on Christmas morning and I would not change that decision if I were to have a do over.
Make new traditions for your family. Cut the strings that bind and suffocate. I'm sure if you ask around, most of your elders did the same thing when their kids were little. It's just too messy to do all that travelling. It's way fun to get packages in the mail and cards and phone calls tho.... nothing wrong with that!

My parents live a couple hours away and when my son was born, I told my mom straight up that we would always be at our own home on Christmas Eve, and the 3 of us alone would celebrate Christmas morning and THEN go visit family. We also usually alternate who we spend Chrismtas Day with (because when my son was born, that became an issue between our two families). We have a lot of Christmas get-togethers between our two families, and I wanted at least one thing to be a constant: Christmas morning at our own home. Maybe that's a little selfish on my part, but that's how it was for me growing up. However, I will also say that I'm lucky that everyone lives within a 2 hour radius of us. The last few years the weather has been bad when we travel, and last year I told my mom never again will I risk our lives to get to a Christmas dinner! It will be so sad if we ever have to miss, but after traveling dangerous highways and seeing cars slide off into the ditches, my poor sanity just can't take it anymore!

I think you need to think about what's best for YOU and YOUR sanity. If it gets to be too much, then you will not be happy and that will show through. Then, what kind of fun would THAT be? Think about the traditions you want to be starting for your own little family. Then, stick to it.

Santa knows where you are. Family is too important... Your children need their grandparents even if you don't need the hassle.
If you have time the week or two before Christmas, drive to your parents' and drop off all of the gifts. If you don't have time - UPS them to your parents.
With a little advanced planning, you can still have all the memories without all of the hassle.
LBC

You could do your Christmas last when you get home from your parents. (Just be sure to come home at a decent time so your not totally exhausted.) My sister does this. When she leaves her house before the holiday, after the kids are buckled into the car, she says she forgot something. She then runs inside and puts all the presents under the tree, so that when they come home Christmas afternoon they are all there.

I distinctly remember one Christmas morning when I was preschool age and we were at my grandparent's house. I remember believing at the time that Santa knew where I was even if I weren't at home. When I woke up Christmas morning there were my presents next to the tree. One was a rocking chair.

The presents weren't there the night before. Santa must've brought them! Kids want so much to believe and are so literal in their thinking that they have no difficulty believing Santa came to where they are.

I wouldn't try to explain. I'd just let Santa stop by with the presents. Then, when you do spend Christmas at home, Santa stopping by is still a part of the ritual. If you want you can have Santa leave the presents in your room or you can ask your parents to let you have some time alone in another room. I am puzzled by why you wouldn't want the grandparents to share the joy of seeing your daughter open her presents from Santa.

My grandparents are a very important part of holidays for me, even tho I only remember them being involved that time and another when I had chicken pox at Christmas time. Opening presents Christmas morning was our families tradition until we were old enough to realize Santa doesn't really come to leave presents. Then we opened them Christmas eve. As a result I do associate my grandparents with Santa. That is a very happy memory. I'm glad they were involved.

We are going through the same thing right now, except my son is a year younger than your daughter and we are wondering what to do next year. My family always traveled on Christmas and when I was pretty young my parents just packed up the presents and santa came to Grandma's. As I got a little older we wrote a letter to santa saying that we were leaving early and he came the night before we left.

My husband had almost no extended family and was home every Christmas, so it's a big debate about what we are going to do. Another alternative is to tell your daughter that santa will leave her presents at home on Christmas morning and she can open them when you get home. Presumably there will be presents and lots of family and such at your family's house and she won't need the extra presents christmas morning.

Honestly though, I think with my son we are going to downplay santa a lot, I think he has become too much of the focus of christmas. A friend of mine got most of her presents from her mom and dad and then santa filled her stocking and that was it. If that is the case you don't really need to worry so much about santa.

My kids are 21 and 12. We have never had Christmas on Christmas at our home. We always travel and spend Christmas Eve with my side and Christmas Day with my husbands side. Christmas to us is about family. We have "our" family Christmas the weekend before and yes Grandparents are invited if they are able to travel. When the kids were younger we would have a family friend call and say when Santa was coming and that he understood they were going to Grandma's. This way we didn't have to pack all the presents along and they didn't just open them and have to leave to go to Grandma's. They had time to enjoy them and if there was something special they wanted to take along that was fine. As they've gotten older I've asked if they felt they've missed anything by not having it on Christmas at our home. They replied that they would miss out on being with all the family and like how we do it. Plus they really like having multiple Christmas's. By doing ours the week before it's like they get to celebrate for a whole week. I'm sure what ever you decide will work out great. We as mothers tend to over think these things. Best of luck to you!

We traveled to Orlando from MD last year for Christmas and put the stockings on the kids seats before they got in the car to go (so Santa was giving them their gifts to use for the road and Disney - DS, digital camera, etc.). We also brought some of the smaller gifts we got with us in the car (packed obviously) and we gave them to the kids on Christmas morning like we would at home. But when we got home, there was more. So they knew Santa knew they were going on vacation, but also left some things at home for them. It worked out well, but was a hassle. Not sure I want to travel again on Christmas!! But it sounds lik you guys have a great family tradition :0). I'd just tell her that Santa knows where she is and bring them - or at least some of them. We decided when my first daughter was born that Christmas morning would always be our family (just the 5 of us) and the rest of the day was for family...only because it's the one time of the year that we want to be just us. Unless someone wants to come to us!! haha

I remember that when my brother and I were kids there were a few years that my parents helped us write letters to Santa to let him know we would be at our grandparents' house in Indianapolis for Christmas, then packed our presents and took them 13 hours north so that we could have our traditional Christmas morning even though we were away from home. For our daughter's first 3 Christmases we continued our pre-kid routine of bouncing around between families, even driving up to 9 hours on Christmas day sometimes. Last year we told our families several months before Christmas that we needed to make a plan because we are going to be home on Christmas mornings now. I feel bad that our grandparents got moved to days other than Christmas day, we now do them a week or two before or after, but we are able to enjoy them more without being stressed about leaving in time to drive 6 or 9 hours to be with other family members. On Christmas day we usually get up and have our gifts, then my parents come for brunch and we exchange gifts with them, then early afternoon we drive half an hour to my in-laws' house for supper. It was a little stressful at first, but last year was beautiful! Best wishes for a merry Christmas!

Ladybug C took the words right out of my mouth... Christmas is about family. It is for you too as you have made a tradition to do what you do the way you do it. I have in-laws in town and I live in TX but my family is in TN. I have done it several different ways and the way it worked the best was the year I mailed everything I needed for Christmas morning home the week after Thanksgiving. The "Santa Stuff" arrived already wrapped and ready to go so that when the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve... we took the stuff out of the box and sat it out and boo-yah Christmas! I packed two separate suitcases for our travels as we have to stop and stay the night... one hotel bag that stayed in the inside of the car and the rest in the back out of the way. As far as sleeping... there are 6 of us that sleep in the same room at my parents house. The 3 boys sleep on a big pile of blankets on the floor (bedlike of course) my daughter sleeps in a pack n play that stays at my parents house and my husband and I sleep in the bed... yes, it is crowded and we don't always sleep the best but my kids love going to Grandmom and Grandad's house! Sleeping on top of each other makes for great stories later : ) Tweaking your packing and unpacking for the sake of making memories makes it all worthwhile in the end. For the families who don't have any one left anymore... they would love one Christmas of packing and unpacking to be able to spend it with family!