Holiday Vacation Planning

Despite having only 13 vacation days plus 11 federal holidays off each year, I am not lacking in vacations. I take more than my share. But they're all short trips - usually just 1 day off from work. I've been assigned the task of organizing the holiday trips. First, a trip with friends, supposedly to go skiing the week before Christmas. I've had 2 others interested and excited to go since the planning process began 2 months ago but I really want more people to go. This is strange since I don't generally like big groups. Several others have shown some mild interest but for various reasons can't go. I guess we'll go ahead with the trip anyway, but I'm not too excited about it at the moment.

For Christmas, I want to go see my cousins Ron and Charles and their kids in Blacksburg but they haven't contacted us and my parents don't fancy asking them about us coming up there. So my parents want to go on a Caribbean cruise. My 2nd option is actually to go to NYC. I guess my parents have a recent fascination with cruises since their 8 day cruise on the Danube River last month, and I have a renewed fascination with theater so I want to see a Broadway show, probably Mama Mia. My guess is that I'll give in to the cruise, which is Dec 24-27, so I won't have to take any time off work. It could be fun. I would be all for it if I someone I like that's my age would come along or if I had some guarantee that I'd meet someone I like hanging out with. I'm just afraid that I'll be bored, even with the massive amounts of entertainment they have on ships these days.

For New Year's, I assume I'm going with my parents to Myrtle Beach for the bridge tournament but I don't know. We haven't talked about it. And I'm thinking about going to the Orange Bowl to see Tech vs. Iowa, but that's on a Tuesday which sucks because it means I'll have to take at least a day off work.