Jenography

Clash of the Christmas traditions

For the first time in years I'm going to be celebrating Christmas in my hometown, the place I spent the first 18 years of life and frankly couldn't wait to leave after graduating high school. Now I'm absurdly excited about having Christmas there with my English family and also seeing my siblings and their families as well. But the other day at lunch I heard the first indications it might not be such smooth sailing with my posse.

"You know there won't be roast potatoes," I said matter-of-factly to my husband and the kids.

A stunned silence.

"What do you mean, there won't be roast potatoes? There will be! We'll make them," husband insisted. Step-son nodded vigorously.

Sensing a need to back-track, I responded, "Oh of course, you can make them." Then, because I never know when to quit, "But you'll be the only ones eating them. Everyone else will have mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole."

"Don't be silly!" husband scoffed. "Of course, they'll eat the roast potatoes." He took another bite of lunch. "Will there be Brussels sprouts?"

Travel: Should there be child-free flights?

Nobody enjoys hearing the wail of a child on an airplane - it wakes you from your fitful uncomfortable doze, it drowns out even the sound of the engine, sets your teeth on edge and makes it hard to watch the reruns of Frasier. For parents, the problem is figuring out not just to keep your child happy but to keep them from making others unhappy.

Is the solution segregating passengers with child-free flights? An article this past weekend in the NYTimes quoted child-free passengers extolling the perceived virtues of such an arrangement. (Guess what, there's a Facebook group for it.) Of course, as a parent, in theory I'd love to have a special area where kids could talk loudly, walk the aisles without my worrying about them bodging people, play on the floor. The NYT article quotes an industry expert who's sceptical anything like that could come about, with an industry fighting for its life and the associated logistics problems.

Feministing suggests what we need isn't child-free flights but family-friendly culture, where everyone amps up their tolerance levels and acknowledges that kids cry (you did too, when you were young). That's a good rule to apply to everyone onboard - some people stand in the aisles, clueless, during boarding; some people hog the armrest; some people carouse during the universally acknowledged "sleeptime". It's easy to feel self-righteous about the person ruining "your" flight - although depending on whom you fly with, the airline might have already beat them to it.

My advice on family holidays in Dubai - in The Times

Dubai - soulless glitz factory or fabulous family getaway? Find out in the article I wrote for the Times website (subscription required). I'll be posting some additional Dubai advice and reviews, along with pictures, here soon so stay tuned.

In the meantime, read my family guide to Dubai in the Times.

Copenhagen: Cool kiddie transportation

Good design moves people. Visiting Copenhagen this weekend I discovered it moves young people in particular, with stylish kiddie vehicles.

The city has a cycling culture, but alongside the trendy boys and women wearing 4-inch heels pedalling around town, you also see scores of parents with their children sitting in large boxes in the front of their bikes, some bundled up against the fresh breeze, some zipped under foul-weather covers like mini-tents.

This is not some freshly knitted eco-trend. The Danish Christiania bike has been around for 25 years and is considered a design classic (we saw it featured at The Danish Design Centre). It's all made that much better with the wide designated cycle lanes that are actually separated from regular traffic. Sure beats those skinny blue cycle strips in London.

But the real surprise are the prams. In the UK, the old-fashioned Silver Cross style of pram is hopelessly impractical if you plan to take public transport and actually, I don't know, enter a shop.

Here, everyone is wheeling this style of pram. I saw a man getting onto a city bus with one, his toddler perched on a little seat affixed across the top. I saw people wheeling their babies through the wide main shopping street. And what happens when you want to duck into a cute little cafe like Granola (order the soft-boiled egg platter, it's dreamy)? You leave your big baby carriage parked outside the door. On the sidewalk.

I'm not going to be one of those people who insists everything is better somewhere else. But when it comes to wheeling your kids around town in comfort, Copenhagen races ahead of us.

Half-term idea for kids: learn polo in Scotland

If your children have fallen behind in their Downton Abbey lifestyle skills (terrible, really), a half-term stay at The Gleneagles Hotel should fix them right up, what-what.

The five-star Scottish resort with its revered golf course doesn’t content itself with a kids’ club stuffed with the typical distractions. Instead, it introduces kids to the countrified pleasures every budding gentleman, gentlelady and outdoor enthusiast should be acquainted with.

Children can take taster lessons in pursuits ranging from archery and air rifle to junior gun dog and junior off-roading, depending on their age. Through the country sports passport program, 10- to 15-year-olds can do an array of actitivies, including clay target shooting, fishing, all-terrain off-roading and introductory falconry lessons with hawking, for £480.

That all sounds cool, but for me the best activity on offer is Introduction to Polo. Kids are tutored by Scotland’s highest qualified polo coach in two-hour sessions - starting on a wooden horse, learning how to use the stick, and finishing with a short game astride a polo pony. Kids must measure more than 1.5m; sessions cost £75. So even if the family estate has been sold off to pay the taxes, dahling, you can still ensure they are brought up right.

This is an editorial post, not a sponsored post. This blog belongs to the British Mummy Bloggers Blogging with Integrity campaign.

10 things not to do in London

Travel and writing about travel has been my passion since I was planning my first trip as a sentient being - one not concerned only with the playgrounds and whether there would be ice cream. (Funny enough though, now that I'm a parent, it's come full circle.)

But finding informed, fun-to-read travel advice, not to mention full-fledged travel writing and essays, is astonishingly difficult. That's why it's such a treat to come across a piece like this one on Concierge.com about 10 things not to do in London. It's got great advice that I know, as a local, to be true.

Have you got local knowledge or holiday experiences you've written up? On British Mummy Bloggers, we've got a new Google map where parent bloggers can add the travel reviews and advice from their blogs, including links back to the original posts. Go ahead: share the wealth and post it now! After all, reliable advice is hard to find.

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When it's time to leave the beach

Given the old choice of mountains or beach, I'll choose beach every time. The sun, proper surf for wave-jumping, bodyboarding or surfing, and sand in places my doctor's never seen. Bliss.

Every year we visit the same resort in Texas, Port Royal in Port Aransas. I hestitate to even mention it by name. As unlikely as it might seem that a bunch of Brits would turn up on this lightly developed section of Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico (oil-free, I might add), it's such an idyllic, trapped-in-the-'70s vibe here we hold our breath on the ferry ride over every year, wondering if it will be "ruined". 

Here we bounce between the beach and the biggest pool in the state. There is a swim-up bar and slides and little waterfalls that the lifeguards don't discourage you from jumping off. Yet a funny thing happens after a couple of days.

Suddenly you notice the unappealing slick of suntan oil on the surface of the pool. The fact that there's just a little too much rubbish sticking out of the sand here and there. The floating plaster as you get out when the sun is going down.

We're all a little bit sunburned and a little bit sore from jumping into waves and whizzing down the slides at funny angles. We've had another great visit. Now we're at the final stage of a good seaside hols. There's nothing quite so nice as that feeling that you're ready to go home.