Shrink the Distance with Family During the Holidays.

My wife’s parents live in Florida and we live in Massachusetts. Holidays are some of the toughest times of year for my wife because her family live so far away and my family lives downstairs. We own a condo on the second floor and they on the first. So, we are always around my family. Making sure that my in-laws are part of the joy and wonder of my daughter Eva’s Christmas can be a challenge. Eva is two years old and these are the best sort of Christmases because she is so excited and filled with wonder. I feel awful that Allison’s parents cannot be here to physically share that with us.

Thank the Internet we’ve got alternatives. For one thing there are programs like Skype and countless other messaging systems to talk with each other or to use video chat. The other day I put together Eva’s Christmas gift from her Mimi and Grandpa Dano. It was an art cart that she could use to create all her future masterpieces. We gave her that gift last night and my in-laws were there.

 

No, not actually in the room but they watched Eva’s joy playing with the art cart via MSN messenger and listened to her delight through an open phone line (for some reason their sound is screwed up and using sound from the computer programs is always a lesson in futility for us.). However, this did work for us really well. I could follow Eva around with the Allison’s netbook so she could show her grandparents the tree, her toy and also her own little tree.

 

For Christmas Day I may also set up a private folder on Picasa or other online photo site to use with my eye-fi wireless sd card. If I do that every photo I take can automatically upload directly to the site so that my in-laws can follow the festivities real time.

 

Had I thought of this more before hand I’d have gotten them a wireless photo frame that can read an RSS feed so that I could pull in Holiday Tweets, Photos and videos so they can see everything right away.

I sense a project in the works. Once I set it up I’ll tell you all about it.

No related posts.