This year my husband and I started a fabulous new holiday tradition.  We claimed a holiday for ourselves.

While we are happy to split Christmas between our two families, we decided Thanksgiving was going to be “our holiday.”  A lot of the other holidays during the year where people typically get long weekends, I’m working, so Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two holidays that neither of us has to work all year.  With Christmas being a holiday we think is important to spend with our parents and my siblings, Thanksgiving became the logical holiday to take for “us.”

We got the idea from some friends of ours who have done this for years.  Each Thanksgiving, rather than split it between her four siblings’ families and parents and his sibling’s family and parents, they long ago claimed the weekend to give thanks for their own family.  After giving it some thought, we decided to do the same this year and found it was a fantastic idea.

Too many people wait until they have kids to make “family traditions.”  The two of us (and the cat, but she didn’t come…) are a family, even without kids, so why not make a family tradition of our own.

We were planning on going somewhere warm, to a beach, the week of Thanksgiving and it was fate that we happened to win a 3-night, 4-day stay at the JW Marriott Cancun Resort and Spa.  We purchased an additional night, got our passports in order (mine needed a name change, and the husband need his first passport) and soon enough we were off to sunny Mexico!

The following is a rave review for the hotel.  We were not compensated for the review, but we did win 3 nights of the lodging portion of the stay.  We were overwhelmingly satisfied with the hotel’s friendly staff, lush amenities and clean outdoor areas.

We arrived in Cancun on Monday afternoon and caught our shuttle to the hotel.  Walking in, the view was stunning.  The lobby opens onto a step-down bar, which features an expansive window that showcases the beach.  Tired from our trip (we woke up at 4 a.m. that morning to catch our first flight), we went to check out the room before finding food at one of the many on-site restaurants.  The room was large for a standard room, the bed was comfortable and the bathroom was about as large as our kitchen at home! The bathroom featured 2 sinks, a stand-up shower, a bathtub and separate toilet room.

We walked onto the balcony that opened with a sliding door and our ocean/pool view was expansive and beautiful.  We could see the lagoon to our left, the ocean to our right and part of the hotel’s expansive pool before us.  We spent a lot of time on the patio that week reading, eating, drinking and watching the sun set.

We walked the beach and checked out the pool before grabbing dinner on our first night at the Beachwalk restaurant, overlooking the sand and surf.

The sun sets around 5:30 p.m. in Cancun and after eating dinner outside we went back into the hotel to explore a bit more.

The next day we upgraded to “Club 91” for the first of our remaining 3 night stays.  This upgrade allowed us each 5 meals a day and an open bar from 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. each night.  We took full advantage of the offerings and got more than our money’s worth each day.  The meals and drinks were served on the top floor of the hotel with a room that overlooked the beach.

The hotel provided beach towels at our request, which was a nice touch.  Each time we went to enjoy the water we were able to get a clean, dry towel and didn’t have to worry about drying ours or cleaning them while we were there.

Each day we started off working out in the spa’s fitness room, a favorite of mine on vacation.  The fitness room was well equipped, if not a bit hot.   Following working out, we had breakfast, lounged by the pool, grabbed lunch, lounged on the beach, had afternoon snacks and more lounging/reading.  We then got cleaned up for dinner, drinks and relaxing.  Three full days in Mexico and I finished four books, got a massage, enjoyed all three days of sunny weather and swimming – the perfect vacation, hands down.

P.S. Thanksgiving dinner itself was a sushi buffet and we loved it!

If you have the chance to get to Cancun we both highly recommend staying at the JW Cancun.  A friendly staff, top-notch amenities and a great stay for our week of rest and relaxation.