Holiday Family Activities
The holidays are a great time to share special times with your children. Different activities can help stimulate their creativity and learning while making new traditions that will last them a lifetime.
- Bake & decorate cookies (from scratch of course-No cheating!). Have younger and older children take part in helping age-appropriate tasks
- Go Christmas caroling with friends
- Watch Christmas movies and have hot chocolate
- Make decorations and ornaments. Have the children create their own for your own home or for gifts. Keeping in mind that small parts of 1 3/4 inch is a hazard to infants and toddlers.
- Have older children take part if planning holiday decorating and even holiday treat and recipe planning
- Give a child one special ornament each year for the tree. That way when they will have a childhood collection of their own ornaments
- Make your own Christmas gift "year"
- Have older children create a holiday-related family game
- Make your own Christmas cards
- When children create something special they made such as a Christmas cookie or ornament, preserve to use as ornaments for future years
- Have the kids help create their own Christmas song
- Have older children choose one day per week while out of school to go do something different, from a scavenger hunt, to looking at Christmas lights, making holiday crafts, etc.
- Make a scavenger hunt with a holiday theme with your children and their friends. Write holiday facts on small papers with something small like a candy cane, then hide with a hint for another find.
- Visit a holiday ice show or ballet
- Take plenty of photos to use as a holiday scrap book for future years
- Take a short trip. Either a day trip or weekend outing. Many cities and regions have their own special holiday features. Find out more by searching online for something special. Have older children help in the search and choices
- Attend a professional or local, school Christmas play
- Plan a visit to one of the Polar Express train rides near you
- Take a drive or walk to look at Christmas lights and decorations
- Attend a local Christmas parade
- Have older children plan a few holiday season meals and cook before Christmas
- Go to the snow, if possible, make a snowman, go sledding, play. Be a kid with your kids!
- Go ice skating with your children
- Go skiing or snowboarding, again if you are near snow or plan a trip (see Winter Sports). Taking time for Christmas activities and games as well
- Between Thanksgiving and Christmas take time to have a several fun holiday theme meals or desert enjoying Christmas music and holiday activities
- Make a gingerbread house or cookies for decorations. Play Christmas music have hot chocolate as you create
- Get creative with the children. Look at the stars and create your own holiday related constellation as a gift
- Create holiday stories. Then make into small holiday books
- Make an advent calendar and each day from December 1st to December 24th write a little note with a Christmas fact for your child to have each morning
- Visit museums or community holiday events
- Read or make up holiday stories for your children. These can be used throughout the holiday season. Small short stories before bedtime and later to be used as a small book for a gift when they are older
- Save your mobile phone photos by year on your hard drive so later you can make an annual childhood scrapbook. A great gift when they come home from college
- Create a new tradition of having the children, and adults, make one gift. Being creative it can be by hand, it can be a song, a play, a card, a poem, whatever they choose
- Play a game with your children while listening to Christmas music and having a holiday desert
- Contact Santa at the North Pole
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Model to your children to enjoy each day by living in the moment like its the last day of our life.
It's the holidays, it's your holiday, it's your life. Make it the best. Happy Holidays! |
