What we're doing on our holidays

The time I have off work at the moment - from Thursday last until 6 January - is overlapped by my partner's leave for 9 days; he's working Monday, but then off from Christmas Eve til the 2nd. This gives us 9 days, inclusive of the three public holidays, to try to do some family recovering from what has truly been a monster of a year in more ways than one.

We're going the staycation again - we haven't organised to go anywhere, and truthfully I think we are all too tired to really get any value out of venturing far from home base anyway. But we still have some fun things in prospect, things that I hope will bring us all enjoyment and refreshment.

Some good things have already happened; the kids enjoyed their traditional last day of school party which we hosted here on Friday, I very much enjoyed a night out in town with my Twitter friends last night (happy birthday E!) and we hosted my partner's family here today for a slap-up Christmas BBQ lunch. Several more are in view. Specific things we have planned are:

-Christmas Day at my aunt's vineyard in the Yarra Valley
- Gold Class Hobbit viewing on Boxing Day for the grown ups while the kids go strawberry picking with their grandparents
- me taking the older two girls to day 3 of the Melbourne Test match with friends
- a day in the city to belatedly check out the Christmas windows
- a day at Adventure Park in Geelong because they have been begging for it
- having friends over for a BBQ with their new puppeeeee

In addition to these family things, we have more personal goals and ideas. I want to get my hair cut and coloured, make a strong start on the Month of Poetry challenge for January, catch up on reading and do some serious sleeping. G, my partner, wants to attend to a few niggling things, sort his closets, and get in some game time. Both my elder girls want to build in catch ups with their friends (this will probably happen in the two days after G is back at work, while I am still home). C, my beautiful almost-5, wants to learn some letters.

I think what we all want, and certainly what we all need, is just downtime - the chance to be, together, even as we are doing. For me, three days into my leave, I can feel the knots loosening and I know that by the time I'm sipping my uncle's new vintage merlot on Christmas Day, I am going to be beyond the wave of work, routine and school stressors altogether. This is completely what needs to happen and I welcome it with wide open arms.