Favorite Christmas Activity?

[LeeAndra]

So I'm doing December Daily this year (again) and I like to make it super difficult on myself by scrapping a Christmaselated activity every day from the day after Thanksgiving through the weekend after Christmas.

With that said, I still have a couple of 'holes' in my schedule to fill over the next couple of weeks...

...so what's your favorite Christmas activity? What's the one (or couple of) thing(s) that you always make sure your family does every year?

[marlathrall]

Drive around and look at lights...
Watch Christmas Vacation
Have cheese, summer sausage, and crackers for dinner

[KristinCB]

At my parents house, usually on boxing day or whatever day we are all together we play the card game war with wrapped gifts from the dollar store. We all buy a handful of gifts, wrap them, put them in a pile in the middle and then play the card game. Whoever wins a hand gets to pick a present from the pile etc. I swear the kids have more fun with this than they do when it comes to opening the real christmas presents

[Jennifer]

--Gingerbread house
--Get hot chocolate and drive around looking at lights in our PJs
--Baking day (pumpkin bread, cookies, pound cake, etc)
--Watch Polar Express

Originally Posted by KristinCB

At my parents house, usually on boxing day or whatever day we are all together we play the card game war with wrapped gifts from the dollar store. We all buy a handful of gifts, wrap them, put them in a pile in the middle and then play the card game. Whoever wins a hand gets to pick a present from the pile etc. I swear the kids have more fun with this than they do when it comes to opening the real christmas presents

I want to do this!!! Adding to my list!

[kelley]

I love the card game war idea!! I've never heard of that. I'd have to think about how to do that because I feel like if it didn't come out even for the kids, there would be a problem LOL.

We always do gingerbread houses, sugar cookies, gingerbread men, some Christmas-themed art projects and drawings, and then make at least 1 homemade ornament. I'm looking for a few more ideas too!

[Valgal]

We make Grinch floats (7up & lime sherbet) and what the animated Grinch movie.

[rdjrneace]

I think it depends on if you have kids or not - when kids was little we would: string popcorn for the trees outside; make construction paper garland, color Christmas pictures for grandparents. I use to try and make sure there was some type of craft for the kids to do each night (or start one night and finish the next).

When kids are older I think it would still be fun to do alot of the same things and I bet they may enjoy the activities.

Something we try to do is visit the zoo (our zoo in Cincinnati does Festival of Lights). Might also want to check around and see if there is a train display around you.

[janedee]

My kids are all grown now but when they're home for the holidays, they still love to play board games and do jigsaw puzzles. We go and cut down at real tree at the tree farm too

[Sherri Tierney]

Our favorites are all local things... choir, band and orchestra concert (just got home), old fashioned Christmas (went today), the local Christmas parade, etc.

[scrap2day]

Decorating gingerbread houses.

A couple of years ago I got a set of plastic houses . It was like this set but came with a set of 4 smaller houses. Works out great for us because we don't waste time trying to get the house to stand up and the kids can get right to the decorating which is their favorite part.

[Sherri Tierney]

Originally Posted by scrap2day

Decorating gingerbread houses.

A couple of years ago I got a set of plastic houses . It was like this set but came with a set of 4 smaller houses. Works out great for us because we don't waste time trying to get the house to stand up and the kids can get right to the decorating which is their favorite part.

Now THAT is neat! We never eat the houses so this would be a lot of fun. The kids could just eat the candies off of them... not all the waste.

[scrap2day]

Originally Posted by Sherri Tierney

Now THAT is neat! We never eat the houses so this would be a lot of fun. The kids could just eat the candies off of them... not all the waste.

It is great. The kids don't really like eating the houses, just swipes at the frosting and candy so it works out all around.

[MamaBee]

I'm loving all these ideas... I'm going to have to snag some of them!

One of our favorite things we do is Christmas Around the World... we watch videos of a different country and usually make a craft or a cookie from that country, while listening to Christmas music in their native language. The last few years we have done Christmas Around the World Dinners. I'll make a meal from that country and watch videos about what they do, what their weather is, etc.