Getting some ideas together for activities for the kids over the Christmas holiday period is a marvellous idea! Not only will it stop those annoying cries of ‘I’m bored’ but it will also create wonderful memories and an opportunity to spend quality time together.
Create warm and fuzzy moments that will be remembered for a lifetime, and create your OWN family traditions. It’s all just so special – time out from the rat race, schoolwork, sports and playdates. Time for your family, and time to just BE together!
Here is a collection of 25 tried and tested Christmas activities you can pick and choose from, so you have the most awesome fun with your kids these holidays!
1. Fun Holiday Snaps in DIY Crafted Frames
Speaking of making memories, it’s fitting that the first activity is all about that. Create a fun family photo shoot – you can dress up, drape yourselves in tinsel, pose around the tree or in Santa hats and reindeer ears – whatever blows your kid’s hair back! Take some fabulous, funny pics. If you want to edit them you can search for free Christmas photo effects such as falling snow or a holly frame. Or leave them as is, and print out your favorites. Then in part two of this awesome mega activity, you can get together some stiff card, glue, scissors paint and glitter and create your own cardboard frames for the pics, and then decorate them with your craft supplies. They will be great for the fridge, to hang on the tree or on the mantelpiece. And what’s more, they will be pored over with delight in years to come!
2. Paper Snowflakes
This is the BEST fun, and you can adapt the activity to suit your kid’s ages and abilities! All you need is square white paper and scissors. You can stick the snowflakes up so they hover magically in mid-air, or you can stick them to the windows of the house, or go round the neighbourhood and stick one to each of the neighbour’s post boxes, to get them into the Christmas spirit!
One way of making great snowflake shapes is to fold your square into a triangle once, then again. Then, you fold the triangle into thirds, and cut across the bottom so it’s straight. Then you cut out your pretty snowflake shapes and open carefully! Always SCH fun!
3. Jump on the Elf Train
The Elf on the Shelf tradition has taken the imagination of kids and adults by storm since a story book of that name was published in 2005. You’ll need to get an elf, which you can find at a toy shop or online. Then, you usually start on 1 December, and the arrival of the elf heralds the kids being ‘watched’ so the elf can report back to Santa. The dear old elf gets up to all sorts of mischief at night, only to be discovered by the kids in the morning. There are endless fun ideas on Pinterest. We’ve also got an awesome FREE Elf on the Shelf printable toolkit for you to download right here. It includes gorgeous editable printables – a welcome letter, a goodbye letter, nice or naughty certificates and plenty of cool designs of letter cards that the elf can leave behind (all editable.) Go on, you know you’ll have as much fun as they will!
4. Write special notes and create drawings for inside Christmas cards for close family and friends
It always means a lot when a Christmas card includes more than just ‘Merry Christmas’. Get the kids to sit down and think of special notes to write – maybe memories from the year with that person, drawings depicting a special time they shared together, a list of what they love most about that person – it will make for loads of warm and fuzzies when the recipient gets their special card!
5. Make your own tree decorations
There are so many ways to make your own gorgeous, fun tree decorations! I love going outside and gathering grasses and natural elements to make décor, but crafted painted decorations work well too. Or bake cookie decorations, or play dough decorations, There are SO many ideas for making tree decorations. Search Pinterest for ideas that suit your kid’s age and skill level, and the supplies that you already have, which helps keep costs down! Crafting can get mighty expensive if you buy everything – use what you have!
6. Grab a selection of Christmas Movies, Popcorn and Hot Chocolate
Grab a selection of heart-warming, feel-good Christmas movies, some popcorn and hot chocolate and stage a mega Christmas movie-thon! Choose movies that suit the ages of your kids of course – and will keep them entertained for the duration of the movie. Then get all cuddled up and comfy, snacks at the ready, and enjoy! It’s great to create some contrast and choose some ‘yesteryear’ classics such as ‘Home Alone’, some more recent classics such as ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’, and maybe the latest and most recent Christmas offering.
7. Home-make and Home-bake Gifts
There’s nothing cooler than some homemade cookies or merengues in a prettily labelled jar. So cool for neighbours, teachers, and friendly people that you interact with all year. A little token of appreciation that is special and homemade, doesn’t cost the earth and who could resist a delicious munch? Grab our FREE Christmas Jar Cookie Labels and Tags, along with recipes for the best choc chip cookies or merengues, pop them in a glass jar and spread the love!
8. Drive to Take In the Christmas Lights
When it’s dark, take the whole family for a drive to see some magical Christmas lights – whether that will be in your road or in the town. Nothing beats those twinkling illuminations of Christmas cheer.
9. Make a Gingerbread House
Have you seen all those picture-perfect gingerbread houses all over the internet? They’re not so difficulat to actually make, and provide lots of bonding time, especially of your kids love to bake an decorate. Make sure you choose a nice simple design and recipe for best results!
10. Build a Christmas Tree out of Lego
We all love lego, and if baking and decorating is just not quite up your children’s alley, you might prefer this fabulous activity – making a Christmas tree out of lego! Or, do them both! There are plenty of tutorials for building a lego Christmas tree on Pinterest and Youtube. Choose one that fits in with your kid’s ages and skill level, and start sorting out the green pieces!
11. Get Some Reading In
Just ‘cos school’s out doesn’t mean reading stops. Make a special, comfortable ‘cuddle spot’ in your house and read the ‘The Night Before Christmas’ to your kids. They will love the story, you reading to them, and just being close to you.
12. DIY on Family Christmas Traditions
Have a family meeting and decide on your OWN Christmas traditions. Yes, there are the general Christmas traditions but how about creating your own, unique family ones! We used to always sit in the pool and eat water melon on Christmas day because we live in the Southern hemisphere and its warm in December. Hardly what you would call ‘traditional’, but its traditional for us! Maybe your whole family loves cycling and you could go for a bike ride before Christmas lunch or dinner. Or, your whole family loves rock music, so you create a rock medley for Christmas Day! What WILL the neighbours think?
13. Create a Christmas Playlist
Speaking of choons – hardcore rock might not be your cup of tea, and lovely, seasonal Christmas music could be just the ticket to bring out the festive cheer. Make yourself a playlist of the music you and the kids love best – either all Christmassy, or mix it up between Yuletide favorites and radio favorites – then blast it when you’re decorating the tree, building the lego tree, or making the gingerbread house.
14. Make Your Own Gift Wrap
This is super fun, special for the recipients and cost-effective! Grab some rolls of plain brown paper, roll them out put out crayons, pencils paints glitter, glue bits of fabric, stencils, stamps, whatever you have and let everyone create their own gift wrapping paper!
15. Give Santa a Little Visit
If you know Santa will be at a mall close by – or other venue, pack everyone in the car and go pay him a visit! You’ll get some great photos, and it just helps to build the excitement and anticipation (as if it wasn’t high enough already!)
16. Take Time for a Tour
This is not typically ‘Christmassy’, but when everyone is on holiday it’s time to do those things you don’t ordinarily have time to do – like visit your local museum art gallery or historically significant building. That is, if your kids are old enough to enjoy and be stimulated by it.
17. Christmas Theatre Productions
In a world where our entertainment is dominated by screens, it’s a welcome break to take in a bit of real theatre. The drama of the curtains and the lights and the live audience interaction. If you find out what productions are being put on in your local area you can grab the kids and enjoy a bit of Christmas theatre.
18. Reach out to friends and family
Make a specific time and date to skype chat with friends and family far away. It’s something you might intend to do but never properly get round to. Make those calls, you will feel wonderful after sharing with loved ones far away.
19. Practice a ‘Random Act of Kindness’
There are so many things you can do to surprise and delight others over the festive period. Donating toys or clothes to children less fortunate is a must, if you can. But its also great to just surprise someone. Make some Santa Cookies in a jar and deliver them to someone who won’t be expecting it – the postman, the elderly lady 10 houses down, your local mechanic…surprise them! Earlier in the year, we created a FREE ‘Random Acts of Kindness Chart’ for kids – they get to color in a heart whenever they have consciously done something kind. You can download it here.
20. Create a ‘Night Before Christmas’ Box
As if Christmas isn’t exciting enough! Create a cute ‘Night Before Christmas’ box for the kids. Such fun, it can contain new pajamas, some hot chocolate and a special mug with some mini marshmallows. Just to up the ante on the excitement front!
21. Make some sparkly Christmas playdough
Especially for the little uns! Make some sparkly red and green playdough for hours of fun and loads of ‘Christmas Balls’! You will need:
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup salt
- 1 Tbsp cream of tartar
- 1 cup water
- 1 Tbsp oil
- Food coloring
Simply mix the dry ingredients together, then add water and oil. Put the mixture into a pot on the stove and cook on low/medium heat while stirring. When it starts to get sticky, turn it out onto a board and let it sit for a minute before kneading (check that it’s not too hot first). Separate out into the number of colors you want, add the color and knead it through. Red and green with some optional glitter seems perfect for Christmas to me!
22. Create your own Christmas Theatre
Going to the theatre is fun, but creating your own Christmas theatre is brilliant! Get out the dress up box if you have one, or just pull together some old clothes and props you might have and let everyone create to their hearts content. You can create characters, scenes, backdrops, lighting add music, play music if you have instruments and just go wild with your family ‘production’.
23. Make a Christmas Garland for the front door
There are loads of ways to make a garland! Just check it out on Pinterest! My favorite is a natural looking one. A simple circle wire frame that is entwined with garden evergreens, pine cones, some red ribbon, a few red berries.
24. Throw an Ugly Sweater Christmas Party
It’s so much fun! Invite your friends and family and get your ugliest Christmas sweaters on! When else in the year can you celebrate being THAT silly! Download this awesome, editable invitation to your sweater party.
25. Track Santa through the Sky!
Did you know that NORAD – the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been providing a ‘Santa Tracking’ service since 1955? It’s sooooo cute! Visit the website http://www.noradsanta.org/ from 1 December to follow Santa as he, the sleigh and the reindeer get tracked through the skies!
We REALLY hope you enjoyed this list and were inspired to get some new Christmas activities and traditions going! Merry Christmas to you all, we wish you peace, happiness and special family bonding time!
