Dave Morin

*This is classic Warren Miller ranting at his best. This week’s installment from his weekly email column. I love it! Wouldn’t you rather spend christmas on the slopes?*

Tis the season once again for children to give their teachers two weeks off so the teachers can use their vacation time to work in a department store to try to make up the wages they lose by being teachers. The holidays are upon us and that means different things to different people depending upon religious beliefs and other priorities. For me, the holidays conjure up images of standing in lines that are too long, spending too much money, spending too much time with family and eating too much.

If that�s what the holidays are about, all of those things can be accomplished at a ski resort so at least you will have the added bonus of skiing to balance out all of the other headaches of the holiday season. The two-week teacher �break� gives parents the opportunity to stuff their 2.7 kids and enough luggage for a small army into a mini van and then drive to a ski resort that is the maximum distance that they can stay awake and drive to within 24 hours.

I used to do that with my kids from the time they were out of diapers until they were out of college. As many parents know, its a toss up whether to go to your in-laws for the holidays so you can stand in line with them at the mall or go to a ski resort and stand in lift lines for a small fortune each day. Standing in lines is definitely one of the themes of the holiday season. You can also count on standing in line for the shuttle bus to the chairlift, standing in line to rent skis for the entire family, standing in line to buy your lift tickets, standing in line to get your kids into ski school and standing in line at the mountaintop restaurant to pay $25 for a bowl of soup.

Perhaps the longest standing tradition of the holidays is spending money. Well, your little holiday ski vacation will provide plenty of opportunity for this activity. Just start adding up the cost of lodging, lift tickets, ski rentals and meals and you will be ready to do what most Americans do this time of year: overspend. To top it off, since you will be at a magical resort that is 11,722 feet above sea level, you will be breathing 20% less oxygen and will be extremely tired. By the time you have had three chairlift rides and 33 rest breaks on the way down, the most logical thing to do will be to stop skiing and spend the rest of the day walking around the village shopping with your wife and your credit cards.

Don’t even think about what this ski vacation will be costing you per run, because if you do, your leftover bank balance will tell you to stay home for Christmas and go skiing in January instead (without the kids). You might as well celebrate Christmas at a ski resort this year because it will provide the opportunity for one of the most important holiday traditions: spending time with your family. Really, all your kids want from you is a place to sleep, lunch money, a lift ticket and a ride back to the condo at the end of the day.

I used to like to take the kids skiing when they were young. It was easy to bring along a box of ornaments, buy a small Christmas tree, and put some presents under it. On Christmas morning, I would watch the kids put on all of the new ski gear I had promoted with my latest movie. This was followed by a lukewarm breakfast in the cafeteria and then a cold bus ride to the mountain to try out our new stuff.

One year, I gave my daughter a new camera for Christmas and she showed her excitement by projectile vomiting all over me and the tree. This made me put the tree out in the hotel hallway a lot sooner than I normally would have done it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful experience to share Christmas with your loved ones. The trouble is that you envision a vacation with lots of family time, but once you arrive at the resort, your kids make instant friends and then they want to spend all of their time with their new best friends located somewhere in their mythical age group. If you thought that hauling your kids to karate and ballet took a lot of time, just try staying on top of all of their activities at the ski resort. Your daughter will want to go out with that darling ski instructor who you know is hustling her so that you will bounce for some private lessons. Junior is 16 going on 23 and wants to go to the local pizza-beer parlor with his snowboarding buddies. In the meantime, your littlest one is so tired that you decide to stay home with her, which is probably for the best because babysitters have now reached the same hourly wage as computer programmers, so you can count on adding $150 or more to anything you plan on doing without her.

Oh, the joys of the holidays. I suggest you load up the kids so you can go to a resort and do all of the same things you would do at home, plus ski. Perhaps the best gift of the season will be watching your kids learn to ski or snowboard. You should enjoy it. Your kids will ski or snowboard as well as you do for one day of your life. The next day they will be better.

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