Happy Thanksgiving Advice Column

The Canadian Thanksgiving weekend is upon us and are a big part of the weekend. Do you enjoy a holiday dinner? Travel to visit family? A day off with the kids?

We found this neat site that explains the holidays origins - if you ever wondered about it - Kidzworld: Canadian Thanksgiving - a fun sight for our older kids to explore a little as well, perhaps while you're cooking turkey!

With my husband, we found that once our daughter was born, we really wanted to begin our own set of traditions that was meant just for her. My husband and I enjoyed our parents traditions for us and didn't have the whole holiday spent traveling - let us repeat this for our own child. This meant, in turn, that traveling to each grandparents house to feast was not feasible. My parents are divorced and that makes 3 families to visit! My husband and I decided that our own holiday 'day' was to be reserved for only the 3 of us - to enjoy some valued time together (in our pajamas if we wished!) as our hectic lives don't really allow for such quiet time very often. The additional days of the holiday weekend can then be spent visiting 1 or 2 of the 3 respective grandparent families. Whichever family was omitted from this particular holiday's visits, gets first dibs on the next one. Fortunately, we have family that is fairly understanding of this arrangement - albeit occasionally disappointed when it's their turn to sit-it-out. It has proven successful in decreasing our holiday stress - the stress that comes from trying to do too much out of obligation / desire but not really fully enjoying it because you are tired/exhausted/"fill in the blank". We do the same at Christmas - Christmas day is ours alone (definitely pajamas this day!) and we spread family visits over Christmas Eve Day, Boxing Day and the week between Christmas and New Years. It's working out quite nicely and makes for fewer and fewer guilt-inducing conversations with grandparents requesting each year to have everyone at their place. They know that we divide the holidays according to our own abilities and fairly to their wishes.

With all this said, as always, I'm keen to share advise on "how to..." - and would love to hear your stress-relief plans for this Thanksgiving. Post your comments below and we'll call it the Thanksgiving Advice Column - GBL-style!