The A-Z of Family Holidays

Part I:  A-L

Alcohol:  Generally considered a vital ingredient in holidays for the untethered, unburdened 18-30s, alcohol is also a fundamental component of family holidays and the survival thereof (see also:  Kids).  If you’re lucky you’ll find yourself on a 5am outbound flight with scores of people who already understand the importance of this element,  be sure to follow their lead (see also: Flight).  Alcohol will numb the pain, mess and boredom of family meal-times (see also: Buffet), will encourage the onset of sleep (see also: Hotel) and will generally give the holiday a much-needed rose-tinted sheen.  Don’t be too sniffy about the calibre of the alcohol on offer;  there’s nothing that ice and Sprite can’t render drinkable, and by the end of the holiday you’ll be following your new friends from the plane into the local supermarket and carting cases of fire-water home.

Buffet:  A mainstay of family holidays, buffets initially give rise to all manner of excitement.  By day three however you’ll be realising that what Sartre actually meant to say is: “Hell is other people milling aimlessly around in the vicinity of scalding over-cooked unidentifiable food” (see also: Queuing).  Resist all temptation – overpowering though it may be - to load up everything on your plate at once. Rice, chips, noodles, lettuce and gravy do not happy bed-fellows make, notwithstanding how tempting they might each individually look (see also:  Germs).  The trick with buffets – apart from avoiding them completely in the first place - is not to put anything on your plate until you’ve scoped out the entire joint and seen everything that’s on offer.  Or at least that’s the trick in theory.  The reality, on family holidays, is that you have a window of about 90 seconds before the kids work out how to undo the straps keeping them seated and disappear into the thronging masses.  Don’t worry – by the start of the second week you’ll all have developed a taste – indeed, a fondness – for rice, chips & noodles etc (see also:  Expectations).

Childcare:  If you want any semblance of a holiday, any glimmer of those carefree vacations now long gone, don’t even consider one without some form of childcare.  These range from the obviously preferred option of round-the-clock nannies, to the less salubrious on-site Kids Clubs.  The former will require a lien on your income for the next fifteen years or so, as well as introducing the element of staff management (see also:  Work).  The latter is a more pocket-friendly option, however it suffers the disadvantage of being limited to mornings or afternoons only. Neither of which work for the benefit of the disorganised or the tardy (see also:  Alcohol; Routine).  A third option is to invite amenable family members to join you “on holiday”;  grandparents are ideal candidates for such a kind offer, and can generally be relied upon to not realise that you’re inviting them along for one reason, and one reason only appreciate the importance of an opportunity to spend quality time with the children.

Down-Time: Previously the entire point of a holiday, now to be welcomed as a mini-holiday within the family holiday.  Only possible if children are asleep, anaesthetised, locked in a cupboard somewhere (see also: Childcare) or have been bribed with ice-cream and iPads.

Expectations: Whatever your expectations of your family holiday may be, lower them.  Then lower them again.  Use as a bench mark that flight you took several years ago, (back in the olden days) when the toddler behind you kicked your chair for fifteen hours straight, and the newborn to your left stopped screaming only long enough to vomit (see also:  Flight).  You are that passenger again, except this time the flight is for two weeks, and the children are yours... Thus lowered, your expectations cannot be crushed, and only then do you have any hope of enjoying yourself.

Flight: Whatever chance your family holiday has of being enjoyable, this will be reduced by about 80% if you opt for one which is sandwiched between flights.  The hell of flying with small children is no surprise, having been addressed previously in detail;  what is a surprise is that, like dentistry, childbirth, and the eating of anchovies, people seem to forget the full extent of the horror and blithely embrace the experience over and over again.  There is no panacea for the horrors of flying with children; no amount of in-flight entertainment or sugary treats will lessen the torment.  Your only hope is to shield yourself from it by STEPPING AWAY.  Slip the check-in assistant a tenner if he can allocate you a seat several rows away from your brood. For this to work, you must (a) have a travelling companion who can sit with the children in your stead (a circus monkey is ideal, otherwise a co-parent, friend or relative), and (b) be sure to approach the check-in desk before your travelling companion. You must also practice, in advance, donning a mask of bewilderment and disappointment.  DO NOT ALLOW GUILT TO INDUCE YOU TO SWOP SEATS BACK AGAIN.  Guilt is your enemy, the check-in assistant is your friend.  If all else fails and you end up sitting amongst - and beneath -  your rowdy brood, set your watch to 6pm and start ordering drinks from the trolley dollies (see also:  Alcohol).

Germs: Despite having never picked up a copy of the Daily Mail in your life, within 15 minutes of being with your children on foreign shores you will have started thinking in terms of Disgusted From Tunbridge Wells. “Foreign” is teeming with germs, and you must not touch a single surface of Foreign without dousing yourself with disinfectant. Sadly, notwithstanding having rubbed everyone’s skin raw, teeny pieces of Foreign will still manage to crawl into your offspring’s pure little mouths and contaminate their innocent little systems (see also: Vomit).  Obviously this is due to no actions on the part of your children;  their propensity to roll around in the dirt, french-kiss every passing dog and cat, and lick long-since melted ice-cream out of dusty floor corners is their RIGHT.  It is, of course, the fault of Dirty Stinking Foreign, and as they vomit a plate of chips into your lap, you’ll wonder why you ever left the comfort of cold, bland Blighty.  Why indeed.

Hotel:  Most family holidays take place in a hotel.  The other, more sensible, option is a house or villa but the hotel brochure will lure you with promises of childcare, entertainment, kiddie-friendly swimming pools, and of course the all-important Family Rooms.  What it won’t mention is that these rooms are designed with a family of elves in mind, elves whose children are deaf and mute and can sleep happily in upturned waste-paper-baskets. Next door, on the other side of walls which have been spun by the elves using spit and air, a family of buffalo resides.  You will learn quickly that buffalo are largely nocturnal creatures who cannot get enough of German television.  The day before you leave you will finally have worked out the optimal sleeping arrangements (one kid in the bed, the other in the closet, you in the bath, co-parent on the balcony), until which point you will undoubtedly drive yourself – and everyone else – demented in the quest for a few hours’ sleep (see also:  Expectations).  With any luck however, your room will have a minibar, and you will soon come to love the local raki for its ability to render you impervious to all external - and internal - noise.

Ice-cream: Despite your iron resolve and your steadfast determination not to deviate from your usual rules, your children will, by day four, be eating a diet that consists purely of chips and ice-cream (see also: Buffet; Germs; Vomit).  Pour yourself some more raki and resign yourself to it (see also:  Expectations).

Jesus: Whatever your religious disposition, this is a word you will be using alot on your family holiday.  Devout Christians amongst you will be imploring the Lord to come and deliver you from the evil you have bestowed upon yourself;  the rest of us will just be screeching His name every thirty seconds or so. (A helpful hint if your hitherto non-speaking one-year-old starts to copy you:  clapping your hands and saying: “Cheeses! Clever girl!” will deflect suspicious glares from neighbouring tables.)

Kids: The crux of family holidays, without kids it would just be... well, it would be a holiday.  The sole purpose of your time away is for the children to enjoy themselves*.  As long as this happens, at least for a few moments a day, you can consider the holiday a roaring success.  (*Don’t question the means of enjoyment too much.  Provided that they’re knackered every night and leave childcare with all limbs intact, you can considered this box ticked.)

Laundry:  Like death and taxes, laundry never takes a holiday (see also:  Work). Despite all of you wearing next to nothing and being in and out of water all day, you will awaken every morning to find that a large mound of dirty laundry has materialised overnight.  Forget about ignoring it – no matter where you are it’ll eye-fuck you from the furthest reaches of its grimy little corner. Forget too about packing those cutesy little travel sachets of detergents;  for anything more than a weekend away you’re going  to need a full family-sized box of bleach-infused biological warfare. You can either resign yourself to it (see also: Expectations) or traipse down to dinner like a troupe of performing tramps.  (The latter is the obvious choice if dinner is a buffet – few people emerge from the bun-fight-feeding-frenzy looking less than dishevelled, so you’ll blend right in).

(Next week:  M – Z.  Any suggestions welcome...)