Labor Day Staycation Sounds Better Than Just Hanging Out

Pic­ture Cour­tesy: Time, Inc.

We are doing a labor day stay­ca­tion.  I actu­ally think the word stay­ca­tion is funny. I mean for years reg­u­lar old peo­ple have just hung out around the house, doing fam­ily events in their local neigh­bor­hoods & cities, and not gone on big fancy vaca­tions.  How­ever, in the reces­sion more peo­ple who might have done go some place for vaca­tion (cabin, Dis­ney, what­ever) are stuck going local.  You know doing what most of Amer­ica did for decades before we got fast credit and cash.  But we’ve given it a fancier sound­ing name, a staycation!

We are no dif­fer­ent.  Most of what we do would fall under a stay­ca­tion for long week­ends.  In my view, it’s good to take time on the week­ends or to take a longer vaca­tion time where you stay home & cre­ate mem­o­ries cemented in your local com­mu­nity.  It seems like for a while there in many parts of the coun­try we for­got the impor­tance of local, com­mu­nity, and home.  Tra­di­tions built there are passed on for generations.

This Labor Day week­end we have begun our own ver­sion of stay­ca­tion fun.

Last night we started off by grilling ham­burg­ers & hot­dogs out­side.  And we had planned to camp in the back­yard.  Back­yard cam­pouts are great, you get the camp­ing expe­ri­ence with all the ameni­ties of your home.  Like oh I don’t know a WORKING bath­room that’s only 2 feet away & not cov­ered in bugs.

Hubby did a cam­pout last year with the boys, when they did a big Daddy day. They’ve wanted to do one ever since.  How­ever, we got out there & got swamped yes­ter­day with bugs. I thought for a sec­ond we were being vis­ited by a plague.  It was GROSS THEY WERE EVERYWHERE.  So we took our smores that were for dessert & headed inside.

Instead of a back­yard cam­pout we did a liv­ing room cam­pout.  Instead of telling sto­ries out­side we did those inside & watched Cora­line.  And can I give a rous­ing endorse­ment to Cora­line.  It was a GREAT movie, true love rooted in good tri­umphs over the illu­sion of good found in evil. I highly rec­om­mend it.  It also gave some awe­some shout outs to the metro-Detroit area & the Detroit Zoo.

This morn­ing we are doing break­fast, hang­ing out in the liv­ing room & I’ll meet up with a friend for lunch.  Then we have fam­ily cook­outs and sev­eral local fes­ti­vals that we can check out.   There is the State Fair, city fes­ti­vals fea­tur­ing foods, sev­eral music fairs.  We love going to local fes­ti­vals, walk­ing around, tak­ing in music & sounds.   I’m really hop­ing we get to visit Pol­ish Day at the one nearby, just like I did as a kid.  Now MY kids can enjoy the food & music. But Mr. G is our true Pol­ish boy at heart, we joke he got all the Pol­ish from both sides of our fam­i­lies.  He loves Pol­ish food and can dance a mean polka.

It’s nice to have a few days hang­ing out as a fam­ily & see­ing friends.  Also, tak­ing some time to remind our­selves that our labor is impor­tant & val­ued, even if it is unpaid or hap­pens behind the scenes.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Tagged as: backyard campout, festivals, labor day, staycation