Take a deep breath and remind yourselves why you've spent hours on a highway or paid way too much for plane tickets on the busiest travel weekend of the year.
You care about your family, as frustrating and as annoying as they may be. We all want our kids to grow up appreciating that connection.
In the hopes that she can make it a little easier for you, Syndicated Family Travel Columnist
Eileen Ogintz offers these 10 tips.
1. Give Up on the Kodak Moments. You'll be lucky if there's one all weekend.
2. Offer to stay in a hotel, especially if you're going to visit grandma's small condo or your single sister who lives in a tiny city apartment.
You can even rent an apartment from a company like
Homeaway.com often for the same price you'd pay for one hotel room.
3. Bring the Cheerios, Tofu, peanut butter and whatever else your gang can't live without.
If you're flying, call ahead and ask your host to pick up what you need at the grocery store and, this is key, offer to pay for the groceries.
Extra tip: Flavored club soda won't stain or give the kids too much sugar.
4. Pack a recipe all of the kids can make together. Bring one of the many children's cookbooks as a house gift (
Amazon.com lists more than 2,000 to choose from).
5. Get a favorite game all the kids and grownups can play together. Remember those marathon Scrabble and Monopoly sessions? How about the new hit Blokus?
6. Stash a crib sheet and the baby's nightlight in the duffel. Babies often are discombobulated in a new environment and having their familiar sheet and night-light can help, pediatricians say.
7. Move the glass animals, grandma's purse, cleaning supplies and anything else fragile or potentially dangerous as soon as you arrive if you have toddlers, or just roughhousing older kids. Bring along a package of plastic outlet covers.
8. Grab the kids and offer to take all the cousins to a movie, playground or nearby museum to get them out of the house and out of everyone's hair.
9. Set the ground rules. Even if they're only in kindergarten, they can help make their beds, clear the table and pick up their toys
10. Keep your mouth shut. No matter how spoiled you think your nieces are or how terrible a cook your sister-in-law is. And remember, do not try to discipline anyone else's child.
