Great Activities For Children Around Christmas Time

The Christmas holidays are the perfect opportunity for ‘family’. However, it’s easy for children to get bored in the run up to Christmas and parents still have lots to prepare for Christmas. Here are some tips on how to keep them busy:

1.     Baking: There is no other season during the year when baking is as popular as at Christmas time. Kids may love to eat biscuits but maybe we can also encourage them to do the baking, too.

A plain recipe leaves a lot for your children’s imagination. Go shopping with them and buy things like food colouring, chocolate or different coatings, sprinkles etc. They will love to eat their self-made biscuits!

Recipe:

250g butter

140g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g plain flour

Melt the butter, add the caster sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon and add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract. Beat this briefly, then add the flour and stir the mixture. If you want to make chocolate biscuits, just add a couple of spoons of cocoa powder.

If you want something more sophisticated or when your children are older, you can try to make a ginger bread house. Such as this one: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4900/simple-gingerbread-house. Let your children use their imagination!

2.     Christmas cards

Are your hands already cramped from writing all those Christmas cards? Why don’t you let your kids write some themselves? It doesn’t matter if it’s hard to read, it’s the idea that counts. It is also a great idea to get your kids to do Christmas cards themselves.

What you need:

• Red craft paper
• Glue stick
• Plain notecard or card stock
• Tempera paints
• Paper plates
• Googly eyes

Cut a Santa hat out of the red paper and glue it on to the card. Glue the eyes below the hat. Pour the white paint on a paper plate and let your child put their hand in the painted stamp it on the card. Pour the red, black and pink paint on another plate. You can use either fingertips or a brush for the nose, mouth and cheeks. 

3.     Christmas Lights

It’s a great treat for your children to go and see some Christmas lights. Just walk or drive around your neighbourhood when it’s dark and take a look at all the beautiful lights. You can take some popcorn and hot chocolate as a little treat.

4.     Go to museums

Museums are a great day out. Most of them are not only fun for children but adults can enjoy them, too. They are perfect for a rainy afternoon.

5.     Make presents yourself

Children love to receive presents but they should also learn to give. A great way is by giving family members self-made presents. They are loved and highly appreciated by everyone and you can have your children busy for hours! Home-made presents also save you some money. How about these little heart pockets? http://radmegan.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/weaving-danish-heart-baskets-for-jul.html

6.     Fell a Christmas tree yourself

If you want your kids to get outside and have a little adventure, why don’t you take them to fell a Christmas tree? This is more fun than to just buy a tree and you can choose a fresh tree all by yourself. 

7.     Decorating

Whilst adults hate it, kids love to decorate. If you don’t want them to decorate the whole house with you, you can give them bits and pieces to paint. Or, leave them to decorate their own baubles and tree decorations. They will have lots of fun and you can calmly decorate the rest of the house.

8.     Play games

Around Christmas time, the weather is never as it is supposed to be: snowy, crisp fresh air and sunshine. Instead it is rainy, cloudy and warm. This is perfect weather for things like board games or a puppet theatre. If you have your family over and everyone needs to be entertained, this is a great game for every age. http://spoonful.com/family-fun/present-scramble. If your family has a lot of children, you can also send them on a treasure hunt. When the weather is good, you can do it outside but it’s also a great activity for inside. You can lead them around the house or the garden making little arrows out of Lego - or when you are outside, use branches or stones. You can make little Christmas related riddles on the way to the treasure to make the quest a little harder and more exciting. They could sing carols or answer questions about the nativity.