Holidays in an RV

After seven years of our family of seven living full time in our RV, we have found that it’s an awesome way to enjoy the holiday season. Depending on what you are looking for, you can go with a complete off-grid/remote getaway with your family or you can opt for a resort-style holiday with campground activities, lots of people, and a festive holiday spirit. Whether you choose to gather with others safely is up to you; also remember to check with local regulations before making plans.

If the holidays are a time of stress with too many parties and events, and you are looking for a more relaxed holiday season, head out to a boondocking spot where it is only you, your family, and nature. This is a great way to have a low-key and relaxing holiday.

But low key isn’t our style—or I should say it isn’t our kids’ style. They want as many people and activities around as possible. This is easy to accommodate in the RV lifestyle since RV parks do an awesome job with family entertainment around the holidays.

If Thanksgiving is a holiday you will spend in your RV, be ready for potluck-style Thanksgiving celebrations (if permitted). Often, the RV resort will provide the turkey, and everyone else coming brings a dish. Some places will do this free of charge, others may have a small fee per person.

Another option is to put on your own Thanksgiving dinner with the people you are traveling with or have met at the RV park. Grab picnic tables from all the sites, line them up, and figure out who is bringing what. This way, you automatically have a large and festive Thanksgiving dinner.

If football is part of your Thanksgiving tradition, be sure a TV is set up outside for watching the game while sitting in your camping chairs and sipping cocktails. Or, Top the day off with a Thanksgiving Day football game of your own. Last year we spent Thanksgiving in South Padre Island in Texas at a county RV park and had an awesome family football game on the beach.

You can also bring your own traditions with you. My mom wrote a Thanksgiving Day play 35-plus years ago, and every year we each get assigned parts and read through the play. It is easy to bring things like this along with you in the RV and keep the traditions going!

Making a Turkey Dinner in Your RV

You may be wondering how to cook all that holiday goodness in an RV oven, and I am here to tell you it is possible! Just be smart about the size of bird you get if you plan to fit in your RV’s oven.

Instead of cooking a turkey, buy a precooked one or a whole meal from a restaurant or grocery store. Don’t worry, no judgment here!

Instant Pots are all the rage in the RV community and can most definitely be used to cook a turkey.

If you travel with a pellet grill or fryer these outdoor cooking tools will make an amazing turkey.

When it comes to making sides, pies, and the like, just remember that with a small RV oven you most likely won’t be able to cook multiple things at once. For this reason, plan accordingly or come up with some recipes that can be done in the microwave like potatoes or veggies.

Another option is to invest in a countertop air-fryer oven. You can cook one thing in the RV oven and another in the air-fryer oven. We went with this option, and it works great when we are trying to cook multiple things at once.

Having a delicious holiday dinner in our RV is 100% possible; it just takes a bit more planning and coordinating!

Christmas

Christmas is a bigger deal than Thanksgiving for our family and usually involves weeks of activities leading up to the actual holiday. This is the same thing in the RV, and it can be fun and challenging to do these activities in a new location.

Decorating

Our tradition is to put Christmas decorations up on Thanksgiving weekend, which includes getting the tree. If we know we are going to stay in one place between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we opt for a live tree for the RV. If we plan to be moving during that time we get an artificial tree from somewhere like Goodwill, Target, or Walmart.

We love having a real tree since the RV is such a small space and we get that pine scent throughout our rig. What says Christmas more than the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree? Remember to keep the tree watered, and to discard it if it becomes so dry that it is a fire hazard.

If you have room, you can keep a collection of ornaments, lights, and the tree topper with you throughout the year. If you don’t have room or don’t have sentimental ornaments, then hit up a Goodwill and get a collection of ornaments together. Or head to a local store to pick up a box of ornaments to brighten up your tree. And it goes without saying that if you plan to drive with your tree in the rig, don’t get glass ornaments.

When the holiday is over and you don’t have room to store the decorations, you can bring them to a local secondhand store for someone to enjoy later.

You could also turn this into a fun family project and make popcorn garlands, paper ornaments, and origami ornaments. Or buy an ornament craft kit and have an ornament-making day. There are so many ways to make it work in the RV.

We like to pick up additional indoor decorations such as lights to hang around our slideout and add fun decorations we find. An easy way to add decorations to your rig is to get the peel-and-stick pictures that are prevalent during the holidays.

We usually have each of our five kids pick out one sheet and decorate the windows and microwave. It instantly adds a festive feel to the rig. And they are less than $2 each, so it is a cheap and easy option for kids of all ages.

And don’t forget the outdoor decorations! For this we try to find any fun RV Christmas decorations like a light-up RV to hang in the window, a festive stake to put in the ground, or an RV Christmas flag to hang up outside.

Making your RV look merry is totally possible and fun for the whole family!

Activities

Once the rig is all decked out, the next job is finding festive things to do leading up to Christmas. It has been so fun seeing how cities across the US celebrate the holiday. You can do traditional Christmas activities like build gingerbread houses. We prefer to buy the kits—there are even trailer gingerbread houses—so we can go right to the decorating part.

We also enjoy baking cookies and use the same recipes we used in our previous house without wheels. Granted, it does take longer to make a lot of cookies since we have a small RV oven, so I probably won’t be joining any cookie exchanges, but it is the perfect amount for our family to enjoy and share.

Lights

We enjoy driving around and finding Christmas lights to admire and have seen a variety of displays all over the country. You can Google “Christmas Lights near me” and see what comes up. To make it an even better experience, stop at a local coffee shop and pick up hot chocolate for the kids to drink while taking in all the lovely lights.

Events

There are many cool Christmas events going on around the country. Once we know where we are going to stay, we research the local events and see what is going on and make plans to check out the things that interest us. This can be ice skating, movies, plays, breakfast with Santa, anything that you and your family are interested in.

With the spirit of giving in mind, we also look for local charities or places we can donate to over the holidays, or Boys & Girls Clubs where we can buy gifts for families and/or kids in need.

On Christmas Day we do our usual Christmas morning celebrations with our kids and the presents under the tree. Depending on where we are, we may do a group Christmas Day feast similar to Thanksgiving. And if no one is feeling like cooking, we may just order pizza for dinner! We then spend the rest of the day playing with the kids and their new gifts.

Over the years we have learned that celebrating Christmas in an RV really doesn’t need to look that different than in a house. And it’s enjoyable and fun to make new holiday traditions, RV style.

What Does Your Holiday Look Like?

When thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or other holiday celebrations in your RV, it is good to consider what you want your celebrations to look like. Do you want to be with a group of people or would you rather do a low-key holiday with just your family?

Once you know what kind of holiday you are looking for, it can help narrow down where you will want to stay in your RV. If you are looking for family festivities, head to somewhere like a Good Sam Campground, a Thousand Trails park or a Jellystone Park Camp-Resort in a warm location.

At these parks, you will most likely find activities, families, and lots of things to do leading up to, during, and after the holiday.

If you are looking for a more low-key holiday, you may want to look at boondocking options or private campgrounds where it’s less likely there will be other families looking to hang out or do activities for the kids.

Another option is “moochdocking” at a family member’s house! This means parking in their driveway and spending the holidays there.

Whatever you are looking for, there are lots of options on how to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in your RV with your kids!