Elena Elisseeva
We all look forward to our summer holiday, highly anticipating the week or so we take to spend at the cottage, the beach or an exotic locale. Yet, as relaxing as we may find our vacation, research has shown that any health benefits disappear within two days of being back at work. We quickly become just as stressed as we were before our time away. It makes sense, then, to find some ways to extend the vacation vibe.
There are many cheap ways to make that holiday feeling last longer. Debbie Frye, general manager of Flyerland.ca, a Canadian flyer and coupon website, suggests her top five ideas for preserving summer memories while sticking to a budget.
1. Have a vacation theme night. A few weeks after you return from your family vacation, have a theme night at home that ties into your holiday. Remake a meal that you and your family had on your trip and rent a movie that's in keeping with the theme (think Jaws if you sojourned on a beach or any one of the National Lampoon's Vacation films).
2. Share vacation photos online. Growing up, each holiday we took was soon followed by a family slideshow night. My father snapped rolls of film and turned them into slides that he would painstakingly load into five or six carousels. The dining room window blind doubled as our makeshift screen and we would gather around to watch, reminiscing as the projector fan whirred in the background. Those slides are now a relic of the past and photosharing sites such as Flickr, where you can create a virtual slideshow, have replaced them. Ms. Frye suggests loading your holiday pics onto a sharing site as soon as you return from holiday, so you can get feedback from friends and live the memories a little longer.
3. Create a vacation photo book. Photobooks, the custom hard or soft cover books featuring your personal photos and comments, seem to be displacing the traditional three-ring album for preserving pictures. It seems that every time a friend goes on vacation, they have a photobook to show for it a few weeks later. Check out websites such as Shutterfly, where you can create a photobook online starting at $12.99 (U.S.). Blacks also has a photobook creation service called Blacks Memorables. "Blacks has different versions," says Ms. Frye. "You can get perfectly bound or stapled. There are a lot of solutions these days to have a keepsake."
4. Build a holiday scrapbook. Ms. Frye is a fan of the old-fashioned scrapbook, as it's an activity that kids can work on both during and after the holiday. You can buy scrapbooking materials at a crafts store such as Michaels. Paste in tickets, brochures, postcards and other mementos from the trip. Consider giving your children cheap disposable cameras so they can have pictures from the holiday that reflect their own unique perspective and can go in their scrapbooks. Ms. Frye also recommends having every family member write down a favourite memory from the holiday. "It's something you can pass on to your kids later."
5. Plan your next vacation. When you get back from your summer holiday, the best way to avoid the post-vacation "dip" is to start talking about the family vacation next summer, Ms. Frye says. Have every family member contribute an idea and do some research on the chosen destination. "It gives them something to plan for and makes them good budgeters."