Yay! I am so excited that Christmas break has officially begun and both my kiddos come home from college tonight to spend the holidays back at home with us! BEST PRESENT EVER!!! Having your family back together again is the absolute best gift in the world. For me this will be our first Christmas together with the four of us in three years and it will be our last Christmas together for two more years (because my son was gone on his mission for the last two Christmases and my daughter will be gone on her mission next Christmas), so I am especially mindful of making the most of every moment I have together this holiday! I won’t take a single moment for granted.
Now that each of you have your family gathering back together for the next few weeks, you want to make sure you fill it with great activities that can be memorable for years to come. If you need a few fun ideas for this break here are a few fun ones we have done together or plan to do together that you might also enjoy:
*Drive around town and look for who has the very best Christmas lights. We did this and found a house that had coordinated their light show to their own radio broadcast so their lights were in sync with the music – it was so much fun!
*Have a gingerbread decorating contest with family and/or friends. Make it exciting by doing a cash prize for the best gingerbread house.
*Frost Christmas sugar cookies together and then take them to someone else to surprise them.
*Go door to door collecting used coats from people to take to a homeless shelter to donate to those without warm coats. Everyone has old coats they never wear and while you are at it ask them if they have old gloves or scarves too!
*Make ugly Christmas sweater cakes – there are cheap sweater cake molds you can buy at party stores, then use frosting and candy to decorate the cakes as ugly sweaters. This is another great one to do for a competition with prize money for the winner.
*If you happen to have snow you can do snow angels, sledding, build snowmen, or go skiing or snowboarding. If you don’t have snow just cut out paper snowflakes and pretend 🙂
*Go caroling! And even if you voice isn’t great that is okay, just take a portable speaker with you and lip sync to your favorite Christmas carols – if the speaker is small enough they won’t even know that it is not your lovely voice singing!
*Spend an entire day watching Hallmark Christmas movies! This is me and my daughter’s absolute favorite thing to do during the holidays. We stay in our pajamas all day watching these romantic classics….awww…best way to get in the Christmas spirit.
*Make a care package to send to someone in the military. One year we did this where we collected used DVD movies and we sent them to the soldiers oversees so they had fun movies to watch during their downtime.
*Go buy or collect a bunch of warm blankets. Then drive to any area in your city where there are a lot of people on the streets that are homeless or begging and hand out blankets.
*Do puzzles! We love doing puzzles as a family. We set it on the table and all gather around it and talk and laugh while we do the puzzle together. It takes a few days to do them usually so it is a great way to have quality time together.
Regardless of what activities you decide to do over the break make sure you treasure each moment you have together. Don’t get so caught up in the “stuff” that you don’t stop and enjoy each other. Treasure the time.
Have an incredible weekend everyone!
~Amy
