Family Christmas Trips, from Family Christmas Online^TM

We hope eventually to list day trips, overnight trips, and other trips that are especially fun to take during the holiday season. We've had three kids in three different schools for most of the last 20 years, though, so we haven't been on many ourselves. (We've done Disney world, but you know all about that already.)

If you have recently taken a trip that you enjoyed during the holiday season, and would like to share with our readers, please contact us and let us know the specifics. We will gladly give credit for any information or photographs we can use.

In the meantime, here are some ideas for day trips.

• Many historical sites, re-creations, and museums have special Christmas events and hours. Examples include Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, Piatt Castles in Ohio, and other historic-houses-turned-museums in many communities. Check their web sites for special hours and activities, such as tours and Christmas concerts.

• Most zoos now have special "tree lightings" and other holiday-themed festivities. As an example, the Cincinnati Zoo's "Festival of Lights" gets better every year.

• Most places that feature trains, big and small, have some events with a holiday emphasis. As examples:
  • At least two railroads in Michigan offer holiday-themed train rides behind real, full-sized, restored steam locomotives:
    • The Little River Railroad in Coldwater, Michigan.
    • The Steam Railroading Insitute, in Owosso, Michigan

    Most other tourist, recreational, or historical railroads offer train related events.

  • EnterTRAINment Junction, near Cincinnati, Ohio features one of the world's largest indoor model train displays, and they do decorate for Christmas.

  • Your local Garden Railroad Club might be able to tell you about Garden Railroad Open Houses or Large Scale Display Railroads in your area. As an example, Family Christmas Online(tm) writer Paul Race's garden railroad has scheduled its first-ever Christmas-themed "open house" for November 8, 2008, near Springfield, Ohio. Paul's friend Dan Stenger has many open house sessions scheduled for December, 2008. For more information on those kinds of events, check out our Christmas 2008 Open Houses page.

For information about our 2007 "Family Christmas Trip of the Year," to the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, click here.

In the meantime, whether you're reading this a week or eleven months before Christmas, please have a great family Christmas this year, and let us know what we can do to help.

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com