I've traveled every Christmas to my parents since I adopted DD14 13 years ago. Here's how I handled it once DD was past her very early years and could stand a bit of delayed gratification: I setup all the Santa gifts under the tree one evening ahead of our trip after she was asleep, and took a picture of it all. I then put it away again, staged somewhere nearby but where she wouldn't find them. Then, on the day we left, I would put DD out in the car, get her all buckled up and settled in, then say "Oh wait! I forgot to do <fill in the blank> - stay here one sec and watch everything while I take care of that!". I'd then run back in the house, QUICKLY pull everything out and put it back under the tree, arranged the same way as in the picture - it amazing how fast you can do this when you have to
. I'd then print out a copy of the picture, and have Santa leave it on the tree at my parents along with a note saying "Didn't want your Mom to have to struggle to get these home - so this is what is waiting for you there!" (I would leave some gifts unwrapped, so she could possibly spy some of what she got; others were wrapped.) Santa would leave just a stocking filled with some great stuff there at my parents, and sometimes one or two smaller gifts under the tree (all of which could safely fit in a carry on suitcase - I've had the airlines lose my luggage at Christmas too many times, so I don't risk checking her gifts - clothes are fine, we can be dressed in whatever, but not gifts! Shipping ahead can be problematic too, as I learned one year when our flight and all flights for the next two days were cancelled because of a major storm, leaving us 2000 miles away from the gifts - so carry on only!).
This method actually helped our Christmas some, because we exchange presents with my family on Christmas Eve plus we exchange gifts with family friends at a large gathering on Christmas day. DD gets tons of gifts between those two events, so when she received Santa gifts on Christmas morning too, it was a recipe for extreme overload and that would usually lead to a meltdown on Christmas Day sometime. By delaying the Santa gifts, things were more spread out so there wasn't so much overload, plus she had a reason to look forward to going home!
To this day, she has no clue how I pulled it all off
She loved it all, and never felt cheated.
Now that she's in on the Santa secret, we just do Santa under-the-tree gifts the weekend before we leave. She likes being able to brag to her friends at school that she got her stuff early
Santa still brings a stocking to my mother's on Christmas (dad died a few years ago
), filled with lots of great stuff - I do an AMAZING stocking, if I do say so myself! - she really looks forward to that, and it seems to give her (and me) the sense of tradition for Christmas morning that we all want!