Not Home For The Holidays

By VALERIE MARCHANT

Christmastime can be delightful. It can also be a nightmare for many, whatever their religion or beliefs. The challenge for those who wish to celebrate: to figure out ways to enjoy what's good about Christmas (time with loved ones, general festivity) while avoiding what is bad (too much shopping, too much food, too many expectations). One way to maximize the merriment, it turns out, is simply to leave home. Increasingly, families, nuclear and extended, are packing up their cars or boarding planes to escape to greener pastures, whiter beaches or snowier hills.

Why do they flee? While Americans enjoy Christmas more than any other holiday, they also find the weeks leading up to it the most stressful time of the year. Many women face meltdown from juggling their jobs as well as all the shopping, decorating and entertaining required to produce the perfect Christmas. Others find the holidays a melancholy reminder of loved ones who are gone. By Christmas Eve, it's not unusual for overworked adults to feel more like Ebenezer Scrooge than Bob Cratchit.

Much of that stress, of course, comes from spending hours in stores looking for gifts soon forgotten, beating off crowds, whipping out plastic. According to a Yankelovich poll, some 70% of people claim that their favorite part of Christmas is being with family and friends; only 3% vote for holiday-gift shopping. Yet shopping is what nearly everyone does, buying more than 33 million trees and $184 billion worth of gifts.

So how about a change--a family trip, say, in which everyone gets to escape the solstice blues while creating new memories and traditions? Here are some suggestions for a streamlined, less stressful holiday away from home.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

The owners of the 8,500-acre C Lazy U Ranch, a two-hour drive from Denver, make sure every guest enjoys a complete Christmas. Ranch hands decorate for days, looping garlands and hanging lights. There is a grand tree in the main lodge and a smaller one in each room that guests can decorate themselves. The pastry chef creates a gingerbread replica of the ranch that even includes recognizable ranch hands. After Christmas Eve dinner, Santa arrives on a sleigh pulled by horses decked in bells and wreaths to hand out a gift to each child. On Christmas Day a family can ride on horseback through the forest before a feast that features a turkey on every table.

Jim Watson, a venture capitalist, says he and his family "start looking forward to our annual Christmas trip to this gorgeous ranch around August." They first went there 10 years ago and have returned ever since, making many friends they can't wait to see again.

The ranch, located at an 8,300-ft. elevation in the Rockies, has a respected riding program. Guests young and old can choose just the right mount from among 175 horses, then train in an indoor arena. Or they can ride on packed trails where they will hear nothing but the muffled thump of the horse's hooves and the whistling of the wind through the pines and aspens. There are many other ways to traverse the great outdoors: cross-country skis, snowshoes, sleds, skates and snowmobiles--even a sleigh behind two Belgian draft horses. Downhill-ski enthusiasts can schuss at nearby Winter Park and Silver Creek.

Counselors will help kids and teens enjoy all the available sports; when they have had enough of the outdoors, they can mosey over to the Kids Corral to play table tennis, billiards or Foosball. Young people on holiday at the C Lazy U particularly enjoy the morning feed run, when they can hop on the feed sleigh, travel to the mountain pasture and help throw 30 bales of hay to the hungry horses.

There are also numerous cozy spots where overworked parents can relax and take advantage of all the amenities. Watson particularly appreciates the relaxed atmosphere. "You can go out for an hour and cross-country ski, chat, read, draw, play the piano and enjoy the fantastic food and great wines," he says. Some might find the ranch costly; others could be relieved that its rates include so much www.clazyu.com)

A COLONIAL CHRISTMAS

In Williamsburg, Va., 150 miles from Washington, Christmas is celebrated far more extravagantly than it ever was in the colonies. The workers really know how to deck the halls: each year they decorate the 50 exhibition buildings with five miles of pine roping, 1,500 wreaths and 15 truckloads of boughs of holly and greens, not to mention bushels of apples and piles of pomegranates. The holiday calendar is packed with walking tours and workshops, holiday teas and wassail parties, fife-and-drum marches, dances, musical evenings, caroling, classic toy-train and doll-house exhibits and of course a community tree lighting on Christmas Eve.

There are more than 10,000 rooms available in the Williamsburg area, including in 27 restored houses. Plenty of packages and levels of lodging make Williamsburg accessible to most budgets, and even late planners should be able to find an affordable spot. Nearby too are many charming bed-and-breakfasts, among them the Applewood and the Liberty Rose(www.colonialwilliamsburg.org)

A WHALE OF A TIME

Ask your children if they would exchange Christmas at home for a chance to see the biggest mammals on Earth, and the response is likely to be: here today, gone to Maui. More than 3,000 humpback whales migrate to this Hawaiian island each winter to mate in the warm waters, making these 80,000-lb. cetaceans easy to observe from a boat or the beach.

Instead of scanning the skies for reindeer on Christmas Eve, consider joining a whale- or dolphin-watching cruise with the Pacific Whale Foundation www.pacificwhale.org) Maui's oldest and largest marine research and conservation center. The foundation offers a junior research program for aspiring young naturalists. Follow that, if you will, with an outdoor church service at Makena, where the sound of blowing trade winds and crashing waves mingles with the Hawaiian carols.

There is a wealth of other fun things to do on this island dominated by a 10,000-ft. dormant volcano. You can hike the Sliding Sands trail on Haleakala, snorkel near coral reefs or just relax on the beach.

Among the top-notch hotels that cater to children is the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa www.grandwailea.com) It has the No. 1-rated beach in the U.S., as well as a program to teach kids to play the ukulele and dance the hula. While the Grand Wailea is pricey, there are less expensive condos for families on a budget.

Even though Maui is 7,300 miles from the North Pole, Santa will make it there in time--in an outrigger canoe. But instead of "Merry Christmas!" he'll probably be calling out "Mele Kalikimaka!"

PEACE IN NEW ENGLAND

If December finds you driven to distraction by noisy, aggressive crowds, head for the Ridgeline Log Cabin in Danbury, N.H., just two hours from Boston. Set atop Ragged Mountain Ski Resort's northeast peak, the Ridgeline cabin is 2,000 sq. ft. of rustic isolation that sleeps anywhere from two to 28 people (the more people, the more reasonable the cost). The only access to the 2,000-ft. peak is by chair lift, or a sled pulled by a snow-grooming machine. (Bring your cell phone.) After the last lift closes in the early evening, Ragged Mountain is all yours.

Tom Cullinane, an account manager from West Bridgewater, Mass., spent last Christmas at Ridgeline in a family party that comprised eight adults and 12 children. Cullinane and his siblings felt they were drifting apart after the death of their parents, so they decided "to find a retreat where we could get to know one another again--to bond and bring the family back." Says Cullinane: "The cabin did just that for us."

The four sets of parents brought food, presents, a tree and decorations. Otherwise the living was easy: skiing and sledding by day, games and stargazing by night. Cullinane recalls "such calming peace--the moon lit up the whole mountain."

Some of the younger family members were worried that Santa might not know what had become of them. No problem: on Christmas Eve one mother sprinkled some "reindeer dust" (oatmeal and glitter) on the snow outside the cabin, because she knew that would attract Santa's reindeer to their mountaintop cabin www.ragged-mt.com)

A BIG EASY NOEL

Well, sure, New Orleans has its French Quarter, decorated streetcars, traditional Creole and Cajun holiday dishes and a spectacular candlelight Mass at St. Louis Cathedral. But what's really unusual about Christmas in the Big Easy is the bonfires that light the way for Pere Noel. Hundreds of towering fires burn on the levees so the jolly gent, who travels by boat, can find his way along the Mississippi. Just as parish and civic groups compete in the Mardi Gras parade, at Christmas they create fantastic forms--including replicas of boats and plantation homes--out of logs stuffed with dry cane. The bonfires burn between the early-evening Christmas Eve church service and midnight Mass. Many watch the exploding cane from a paddle wheeler or a riverboat.

Children are also thrilled by a relatively new holiday event, Celebration in the Oaks, in City Park. Driving and walking tours lead guests by majestic oaks and lagoons adorned with 2 million tiny lights. The celebration features enormous puppets, a live Nativity scene, horse-drawn carriages and a miniature-train ride through Storyland amusement park.

Accommodations are easy to find this time of year in the 20,000 hotel rooms in the Big Easy www.neworleanscvb.com) often at bargain rates. Some 30 restaurants, including Arnaud's, Galatoire's, Bacco, Antoine's and Tujague's, serve the traditional reveillon (awakening) dinners, just like those that the city's early inhabitants enjoyed after midnight Mass.

GEORGIA'S ISLAND

Many families return year after year to celebrate an elegant Southern Christmas at the Cloister at Sea Island, Ga. The resort, located on a 5-mile-long island that was once a Native American fishing ground, has been owned and operated by the same family since it opened in 1928. Traditions abound: there is a huge tree, a gingerbread house, caroling and sing-alongs, ballroom dances, a yule-log ceremony, an eggnog party and other holiday feasts. The children welcome Santa and his Mrs., who arrive in a sleigh jeep, to their own Christmas Eve party.

There are also lots of sports, particularly golf. The resort is nationally recognized for its two golf courses and 25 tennis courts, as well as its spa and food. During Christmas week, the Cloister offers several packages for the sporting family: a pro-am and parent-child golf tournaments; a junior golf school and clinics; and the Sea Island Shooting School for skeet, trap, sporting clay and archery. Prices are reasonable because rates include all meals and many activities--and those rates don't go up if you bring the kids www.seaisland.com)

WHITE CHRISTMAS, GUARANTEED

If you're dreaming of a white Christmas, head to Nub's Nob in northern Michigan. Overlooking Lake Michigan's Little Traverse Bay, Nub's Nob has the same likelihood of snowfall as any other resort. With 141 of its own patented snow guns, though, Nub's Nob can turn 7.2 million gal. of water into white magic every day. The reliably skiable snow on its 41 trails won the resort kudos from Ski magazine.

The Waggoner family--Laila, Ben and their three children--"swear by the always snowy Nub's Nob and its low-key attitude. "You never feel the stress that you feel at other ski areas," says Laila. During their Christmas vacations, they have tried it all: rental homes, hotels and condos www.nubsnob.com) Now they have their own vacation home minutes from the resort so they can play host to their extended family for the holidays.

The nearby bayside town of Harbor Springs (pop: 2,500), with its pretty decorations and lights, huge community tree and friendly shopkeepers, completes what Laila dubs "a winter wonderland, like something out of a storybook."

--With reporting by Jyl Benson/New Orleans

With reporting by Jyl Benson/New Orleans