Vacation. What a wonderful thing. Family. What a blessing. Vacationing with family? It should be wonderful blessing. It’s a time to relax with your loves ones. So why am I suddenly thinking I don’t want to vacation with them? 

Recently, articles have been popping up about whether you should vacation with your extended family, and the answer is a big, fat YES! Whether your family is close and already does it, or you barely know your cousins and think of them as strangers. You should vacation with your extended family, because something special happens when you do.

A friend once mocked me with the caustic observation that: “We’re going to rename you Paciencia [patience].” The friend, my husband and I had returned to Seville after an afternoon in the countryside to find that the radiator in the car we had borrowed from my in-laws was hemorrhaging coolant.

Sevillanos love tradition. Most are dedicated to keeping their beloved city as it always has been. Nevertheless, despite the tenacity of Sevillanos in retaining their traditions, even Sevilla, like all cultures and the places that embody them, is changing. In one of those amazing contradictions that I continually discover here, it is in the celebration of two very traditional holidays that this change is most apparent: Christmas and Three Kings’ Day.