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Christmas is over but are you still in the mood to party? Looking to ring in 2012 with some fun for your family? Personally, I prefer to go to bed early and sleep in on New Year’s Day to recover from the Holiday season. My kids however, like the idea of celebrating the arrival of the new year. So, we will PARTY. Since I’m usually running on empty, I’ve put together some fun but easy ideas for staying home and celebrating in your family room with the kids.
GENERAL TIPS:
Keep it low-key.
You don’t need to go crazy cleaning the house, buying party favors, and cooking to have a fun New Year’s celebration. Keep the party ideas simple. Even if you just end up watching the countdown shows on TV with the kids, they’ll appreciate it.
Make it a party.
Definitely invite neighbors, family and friends with kids about the same age over to help celebrate. This keeps everyone off of the road, you can all watch the kids together, everyone can ooh and aah over your Christmas decorations one more time, and it saves on babysitter money. To keep it casual and easy, have everyone bring a dish to share. Start the party later so you don’t need to cook dinner, just have snacks and desserts. Invite the kids to come over in their pajamas so it’s casual, and parents won’t have to change their kids’ clothes if they fall asleep before going home.
Time is all relative.
Even if you have small children, you can still ring in the new year together. Here’s a trick. If you have small children who might not make it to midnight, change the clocks in the house so that “midnight” hits around 9 or 10 p.m. The kids will feel like they got to stay up and celebrate and you will still be able to put them to bed at a decent time. Or have the kids at the party bring sleeping bags so they can go to sleep while the parents still stay up and party a little more.
Pop in the Fun
Kids love to make noise and New Year’s Eve is all about loud noise. Grab some inexpensive noise makers at your local Dollar Store or buy a roll of large bubble wrap. Give each kid a piece and let them “Pop it Up” at midnight while the adults pop open the champagne. Skip any confetti or streamers unless you want to spend the next day cleaning. Remember, we said keep it simple.
Balloon Drop
Another fun idea is to blow up balloons and “drop” them at midnight. Rig up a net in a corner of the basement or drop them over the balcony stairs. Kids will have fun popping the balloons and chasing them around.
Re-Decorate Your Christmas Tree
I loved this idea from a Mom who wrote in to familyfun.com a few years ago. She had her children help her take the ornaments off the Christmas tree so that they could make a “New Year’s Tree.” They took all of the Christmas ornaments off of the tree but left the lights on. They then added curled ribbon, party horns, balloons — basically everything needed for a New Year’s Eve party for the children. What a fun and festive idea and you get a second use out of your Christmas tree! If you are planning on having people over to help celebrate New Year’s Eve, this is a perfect idea on how to decorate.
ACTIVITIES:
It’s easier to plan a party if you have a theme. Here are 3 easy themes and activities to keep the family occupied and laughing while you wait for midnight.
Game Night
Get out those new board games you got for Christmas or Hanukkah, find your old favorites in the closet or fire up the Wii for a little family competition. Definitely grab prizes like big boxes of movie theater candy, large chocolate bars, or my favorite, win coupons to get out of household chores. Click here for more ideas on planning a Family Game Night. Here are a few of my family’s favorite games:
Why not have fun cooking together and sharing some laughs in the kitchen by making homemade pizza? If you have a great pizza recipe and a pizza stone, you are good to go. If not, here’s my family’s killer homemade pizza recipe. To make the evening more unique, have everyone wear their pajamas all night. Invite another family over and make it a kids/adult slumber party. Or set up a tent in the living room and the kids can watch the ball drop from inside the tent in their sleeping bags. Here are some more ideas on how to host a fun Pizza Party.
Fancy Schmancy New Years Eve Party
Half the fun of New Year’s Eve is getting dressed up. Who loves dress up more than kids? It’s also fun to dance so why not combine these two into a Fancy Schmancy New Year’s Eve Party? Kids love watching their parents get dressed up for New Year’s Eve Parties, so let them share in the spotlight this year by dressing up in their fancy duds or their kooky dress-up clothes.
You don’t have to go to a club to hear the latest bands and dance on New Years. Pick a theme and host a kid’s prom at home. Turn the New Year’s countdowns on the TV and let the kids dance along to the featured bands. Or set up an area in the house as a dance floor and spin the tunes. Create a playlist of the top dance hits of 2011 and groove those holiday feeding-frenzy calories away or grab some of our favorite kids music to get them hopping. Get your video camera out because the video of your kids dressed up and dancing will be worth it!
For more ideas, here’s a video when I was on WGN last year talking about hosting a New Years Eve party for your kids. I was also on MomTalkRadio last night sharing a few of these New Years Eve ideas for your family.
Whatever you decide to do, have a safe and wonderful New Year’s Eve with your family. We look forward to sharing more simple, creative and memorable Family Fun ideas with you in 2012, so we can all have more Chocolate Cake Moments.
Don’t you just love Holiday family traditions? Everyone is excited, looking forward to the activity. It’s fun to get everything ready with the kids. And then it’s fun to make the memories.
However, every now and then I feel like some of our traditions are getting a little “stale” and we need to spice them up a bit. Maybe you just need to add a fun twist to an existing family tradition or maybe your kids are a little older now so they can do more things.
So I did a little investigating and I was amazed at some of the really unique and cool traditions that other families are doing for fun. So I flagged some traditions I found online and asked my readers about some of their unique Holiday Family Traditions. You might want to start some of these fun activities in your home.
Christmas Eve Traditions
There are a lot of fun activities that go on on Christmas Eve night. Some are more traditional like opening gifts from family members to going to midnight mass. Some read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and others have to sing a Christmas carol before you get to open gifts. (OK, that was my Mom’s rule.) However, some families kick it up a notch. I’ve seen online that some families wear matching Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. My Mother-in-law has a good family friends that hosts a talent show on Christmas Eve. Everyone no matter what age has to get up and provide entertainment for the whole family. If your family tends towards the “dramatic” it’s a nice tradition because cousins were working together on an act which brought them even closer together. Plus, it makes for great family videos.
The Family Memory Tablecloth
Amy over at SheWearsManyHats.com has a unique family tradition where they make aFamily Tablecloth. Every year when her family gets together for the Holiday they add a saying, memory, hand print or other drawing in pencil onto the designated family tablecloth. Then her mother-in-law embroiders over the pencil marks during the year so that next Holiday you see your contribution permanently added in needlepoint. The tablecloth grows as the family does. How cool!
Tree Looking
My husband’s family lives in rural Iowa and for years they’ve had a tradition of “tree looking” where you drive around to your friends’ houses during the Holiday Season and drop in to look at their tree. I know my Mother-in-law always had to have some cookies or treats ready because you never know when someone will stop by. It’s casual, informal and a fun way to stay connected with friends or neighbors and get to check out all of the hard work people put into decorating their homes for Christmas. I only ever get to see my neighbors’ trees from the window. I love the idea of stopping by to admire and chat. I love seeing other people’s Christmas decorations too because there is usually a memory or story behind some of them that I love hearing.
Hide and Seek Traditions
This year, the Elf on the Shelf tradition has really taken off but many families have been hiding the Christmas Pickle for years. This is a German traditions where you have a glass pickle ornament that gets hidden on the tree and whoever finds it first on Christmas Eve wins a prize or small gift. Here’s how one of my readers does the Christmas Pickle tradition.
The Cookie Drop
Over at Girlfriendology.com, I found a cute post about a Cookie Drop tradition. Andi, the author from Udandi.com, makes up packages of homemade cookies, drops them at a friend or neighbor’s house, takes a photo of the package at their door and sends them an email telling them to check their front door for a surprise. Very cool!
Does your family have any unique holiday traditions? I’d love to hear about them so please leave me a comment.
Looking for a way to spice up your family’s Holiday Traditions this year? I suggest you Be Creative and Try Something New to add a little variety to your Holiday Season and make it more fun this year.
While we all love traditions and look forward to them every year because they provide a foundation for the family’s Holiday activities, it doesn’t mean you can’t adapt or update the tradition or try something new entirely. Variety is the spice of life! What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t like the new activity and you don’t do it again next year.
So, instead of putting on your Santa Hat, put on your thinking caps and get the whole family to brainstorm some creative ways to amp up your existing Holiday Traditions. If your family has a tradition of cutting down a real tree every year, try wearing Santa Hats or dressing like lumberjacks this year to give the event a little silliness and flair. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, be adventurous and try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild. Do all the girls in your family get together for Holiday Tea? Ask everyone to wear an audacious hat to make the affair more elegant and/or goofy.
If your family seems a little burned out on the tried and true family traditions, be adventurous this year and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. Who knows? It may become a new favorite. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you’ve never had a real Christmas tree, try cutting one down this year and see if you like the difference. If your kids are a little older now, try going to Midnight Mass. Invite other people to your Hannukah celebration to teach them about your traditions. Try making your menorah this year instead of using the family favorite. Or, buy a candle making set and have the whole family make candles this year for the Celebration of Light. (I’m not Jewish but I asked my friends about their traditions and looked and online for ideas. I found a really fun article on family Hannukah traditions to do with your kids at SheKnows.com. Let me know what you think.)
Family traditions are wonderful, aren’t they? The anticipation. The preparation. Knowing that your family has done this in the past and will continue to do so makes an activity powerful. Hopefully, these traditions are also a load of fun, mostly because you spend time together as a family!
The Winter Holiday Season offers great opportunities to have fun traditions with your family. Baking special cookies, throwing parties, caroling, sledding, cutting down a real tree, etc. Whether you are carrying on family traditions or starting new ones, there are so many options. However, the season is short and there is a lot to do – gift buying, baking, wrapping, Holiday parties, decorating, and writing and addressing cards, to name a few. Agh! Don’t let the stress of the Holiday Season overwhelm you where you forget to have fun or start traditions your family will look forward to year after year. After all, the Holidays are all about family.
You may already have a few traditions in place but I want to inspire you to start a new one this year or add to an existing holiday tradition to make it even more fun. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But it’s also nice to just relax, stay in, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home.
What is a tradition? According to Merriam-Webster:
a tradition is an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)ul>
It is also:
the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
It is essential that traditions continue year after year to become ingrained in your family’s culture but that doesn’t mean they are inflexible. Most family traditions change a little over time as your kids grow older or new members join the family. That’s perfectly fine! It’s the intent behind the tradition that shouldn’t change – remembering Grandma, spending time together, giving back to others less fortunate, etc. So, don’t let any of the Holiday stress or change get in the way of carrying on the fun.
Do you know which traditions your kids love? Ask them today. I was surprised that my son’s favorite family tradition was going to the Christkindlmarket in Chicago every December. He loves the smell of the German sausages, eating outside in the cold, looking at all of the wooden nutcrackers, the beautiful Christmas lights, and spending time downtown with our family and most years, our best friends too. I love this tradition too but I was surprised it was his #1 tradition. My daughter’s? Taking a carriage ride around downtown Chicago to see all of the Christmas lights.
Tune in tomorrow for my “Recipe” on How to Create Strong Family Holiday Traditions.
We have a special Holiday tradition in our house that we do every year with the kids and Grandma and Grandpa. We decorate a Gingerbread House. We usually buy a kit where the house pieces are already made and all we have to do is decorate. (Saves a huge amount of time!) We eve use old Halloween candy as additional decorations for the house to get rid of the “less than desirable” candy that the kids never ate.
If you are looking for recipes to make the gingerbread pieces yourself, different gingerbread kits or tips on how to best tackle a gingerbread together, try the Fork & Bottle site or the Wilton site. They both have a nice round-up post of all things Gingerbread. If you want to see some incredible gingerbread houses for inspiration, check out Sweetopia, How to Cook That, or Better Homes and Gardens.
One year we branched out and made a gingerbread stable since my daughter loves horses. We’ve also made a gingerbread train. You can find the gingerbread train kit here. We even found a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Gingerbread House Kit. I love the Bumble! If you know of any other cool gingerbread kits out there, let us know. We’re always game for trying a new twist on a favorite family activity.
However, if you want to avoid the sticky mess and try something new this year, we found this great idea on the Alpha Mom site to build a cardboard Gingerbread House. Very cute!
Do you decorate a gingerbread house every year? Do you eat the gingerbread house when you’re done?
Looking to start a new family tradition this year? Celebrate the Mexican Holiday Day of the Dead. Our family really looks forward to el Dia de los Muertos each year. It has become one of our favorite family traditions because it is all about remembering and celebrating our loved ones who have passed away. On November 1st, we spend the day decorating, cooking, and in the evening we host a special dinner where we laugh and share our favorite memories of those we miss.
To help share the tradition with your family, here are some ideas on how to celebrate Day of the Dead with your kids and make it fun.
Set up an altar.
This “altar” or ofrenda is not for worshipping, it’s just a fun, colorful reminder of the people you miss. Usually Day of the Dead altars have 3 tiers, which have some significance that you can read about here if you are going for accuracy, but set it up however you want.
We like to include marigolds (the traditional flower of Day of the Dead), candles, skull candy (calaveras), papel picado tissue paper scenes, and some Day of the Dead folk artwork that we’ve collected. The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago has a great gift shop to buy little trinkets and figures for decorating. La Fuente imports and MexicanSugarSkulls.com sells quite a few items online, as well.
The most important element is to include on the altar are photos of your loved ones – we even include our pets. Then add objects that represent what they loved or reminds you of them. We’ve included some of Grandpa’s favorite food, a can of his favorite beer, and a blanket Grandma made of his old shirts. We include some cat toys for our deceased pets, too. Then you can decorate with Day of the Dead inspired folk art or crafts.
OMG! Sunday is Father’s Day. How did that happen? If you are at a loss for ideas on how to show your husband how much you and the kids love him, read my post over at the Parent Tested, Parent Approved blog easy but memorable activities will make it look like you have been planning his special day for months. Dad will be thrilled.
I hope everyone has a fun and memorable celebration tomorrow for Father’s Day!
At a loss for ideas this Memorial Day weekend to have fun with your family? Tired of the same old picnics? Why not create your own Family Holiday? We all love holidays right? Special foods, special activities, time spent with people we love (or at least like.) Maybe you don’t get to take off of work for your own invented Holiday, but any reason to celebrate ranks high on the family fun meter.
I was inspired when I came across a fun posting on Creating Your Own Family Holiday over at RookieMoms.com. Think about it. Creating your own Holiday! How fun is that!?! And, what a great opportunity to use your imagination and creativity.
Here’s our take on the idea – Why not let each person in the family come up with an idea and you can vote on it. Or, put the ideas in a hat each January 1st and draw one idea to be celebrated that year. If you love celebrations and silliness, why not let each person in the family get their own Holiday? If all of your family birthdays seem to come at the same time of year, this is a perfect opportunity to spread out your family celebrations. Here are some of my ideas for a family Holiday:
1. Family Movie Festival. In the fall on a yucky Saturday or Sunday, pick a day for a family movie festival. Everyone in the family get to pick their favorite movie to watch. Lounge the day away in your pajamas and watch these classic movies with plenty of snacks. End the day by watching some of your favorite home movies or ask Grandma and Grandpa to come over with movies of you when you were a kid. The kids will love it! You can even create silly categories, vote and award the movie with your own version of the Oscars.
2. Curl Up With a Good Book Day. I love to read and there is nothing greater than finding a good book that you can’t put down. However, I always feel guilty when I sit down and just read during the middle of the day. I always feel like I should be doing something else. So, I would love a day where everyone gets a book, finds a comfy nook, and spends the day reading. We love to encourage our kids to read so this would help them discover the joy of reading. At the end of the day we can each talk about what we read.
3. Chocolate Festival. Have chocolate at every meal. Figure out how to add chocolate to every dish you eat that day. Search for recipes online for inspiration.
4. Our Family Gives Back Day. Spend the day helping out various charities. Call some of your local charities and ask if there is something you can do as a family to help out.
5. Family Adventure Day. Grab a map with a 2 hour driving radius from where you live. Have one of the kids close their eyes and stick a pin into the map. You now have a destination for your adventure. Look up the town on Google and see what interesting things or restaurants there might be in that town and head out to discover a new place.
What ideas do you have for creating your own Family Holiday? They can be funny. We like funny.
It’s finally warm enough in the Midwest that the Farmer’s Markets are now open. Yeah! I love Farmers Market Season. Browsing the Farmers Market stalls on a lazy Saturday morning is one of my absolute favorite summer traditions. I bring the family, the dog, and my iced Coffee Toffee and enjoy myself. We’re together, outside in the sunshine, discovering new foods, promoting local farmers, and exercising by walking the neighborhood. (That’s almost an overload of family goodness, but we deal.)
But don’t think of it as a grocery run! At our Farmers Market there’s live music, food samples, dogs, dogs, and more dogs. The kids love the entertainment value. With a little creativity, a trip to the Farmers Market can be an adventure for your kids.
Here’s how to make it more fun:
1. Shop. Give the kids a bag and let them buy their favorite foods. Our Playful Chef Farmers Market Bag is PERFECT for this! The set includes a bag to carry your purchases, a scrubber and cotton towel for cleaning your produce, and a booklet with information on which fruits and vegetables are best in each season, where they are grown and how best to prepare them.
2. Learn. Give your kids a small notebook or “Adventure Guide Book.” Have your kids visit each stall and identify a food they like best. Have them write notes in their book on who they met, which foods they tasted and liked or didn’t like, and where the farm is located.
3. Hunt. Create a scavenger hunt for the kids. Have them find an item for every letter of the alphabet or find as many colors as they can. Find something from another state. Find 5 raw foods and 5 cooked.
Now, go home and enjoy the fresh taste of summer!
Do you take your kids to the Farmer’s Market? What do they enjoy the most?
Family traditions are so important and Easter is a great time of year to celebrate and have fun with loved ones. But Easter can mean more than just a ham dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt. Here are 5 ideas to start a fun, family Easter tradition this year.
1. Color Easter Eggs – Well, duh! This is easy right, we all know you color Easter eggs at this time of year. But, why not add to the Easter Egg coloring experience? Every year, color the eggs in a different way. Family Fun magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and Celebrations.com provide you with ideas on how to decorate Easter Eggs. Start a tradition where every year you take turns deciding how you are going to decorate the eggs that year – stickers, decopage, tie dye, googly eyes, themes, etc. Or, start a tradition where you take some of the decorated eggs to a nearby nursing home. They would love to see your artwork. Another idea is to paint wooden eggs. Every year, everyone in the family gets to decorate one wooden egg. Put their name and the date on the bottom, save them and you have some artwork to look back on.
2. Hunting for Practical Jokes. Funny-up the Easter Egg Hunt by putting weird items in the plastic eggs. Our family has put in everything from grass, dog food, candy wrappers, dirt, shaving cream, and lego guys in the eggs. The kids look forward to opening the eggs and finding weird stuff in them. Lots of giggles.
3. Feed the Bunny. You leave cookies and milk for Santa, right? Well, what about the Bunny? He has to travel all night and he has to hop it! He doesn’t get a cool sleigh ride. I’m sure he’s hungry. Leave out a plate of carrots and a bowl of water for the Easter Bunny. (Maybe leave a can of Red Bull. I think he’s going to need the extra energy.) It’s up to your kids if they also want to leave some “white dip.” This forces Mom and Dad to eat a healthy snack before dinner, as well. Take it a step further and have the kids create a special plate and bowl just for the Easter Bunny.
4. Hunting for Fun. Why do the kids get all the fun on Easter Day at the Easter Egg Hunt? My husband has a huge family and every Easter the adults have fun hiding the eggs for the kids. The eggs get hid in some weird places and you get points for hiding the egg that doesn’t get found until Labor Day. Bonus points if you find out the egg was run over with the lawn mower. One year when the kids were done hunting and the adults were standing around wondering what to do next, we decided to have an adult hunt. One year we hid beer cans (soda would work, too). Another year, it was twinkies. We have hid pieces of paper with jokes on them and it’s pretty fun to read them all aloud later. Be creative, but have fun by having a second Easter Hunt.
5. Try Something New. Traditions are all about doing the same thing so you can look forward to the event, right? Well, make a tradition of doing something different for Easter. In our family, Easter means Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, Deviled Eggs, and some kind of Cream Pie. However, why not make it a tradition to try a different meal combination every year or a different recipe for ham, cheesey potatoes, etc? Cook an Easter meal from another country each year. Or, if you are like me, you clip these great recipes out of the food magazines only to store them somewhere and never use them. Use this family gathering as an excuse to try a new ham recipe or do the potatoes a little different. Just wait for the comments. “Ooh, she used apricot jelly on the ham this year.” “Goat cheese in the potatoes? Brilliant!” Here’s another tradition – invite non-family members to Easter dinner. If you have a small family or find yourself not traveling on Easter, start a tradition of inviting non-family to the family dinner. We have plenty of friends who celebrate Easter at home by themselves. Why not invite them over? You’re going to cook anyway.
We hope these ideas have spurred you on to start a new Family Tradition this year. Leave a comment and tell us your Easter Family Traditions.
It’s not too late! Still haven’t thought of something fun to do tomorrow with the kids to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Well, the luck of the Irish be with you. Here are some last-minute, but worth-the-wait, ideas.
Is your Family Game Night feeling a little stale? The kids aren’t that excited about it anymore? Or, do you have a hard time convincing the family to even have a Game Night? Here are 5 ideas to inject a little more fun and creativity into your family’s special evening. (By the way, to help spice up your Family Game Night, we’re offering a 20% discount on all family games at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com. Sale ends January 31, 2011. Grab some today and be ready to play next weekend!) (more…)
Don’t throw out your Christmas cards yet! There is still joy and fun to be had with them. In our house we tend to be so busy during the Holiday Season that when the Christmas cards come in I open them, glance at them, and then put them into a container to read later. (I have to open them to make sure I haven’t missed anyone new for our Christmas card list.) After Christmas my husband and I go through the pile and spend time catching up on the news our friends and family share in their cards. Finally, they hit the recycle bin.
Last year, a gentleman at one of my speaking engagements told me about a great tradition they do in their house with their cards. They have an art show. He said his family tapes all of the cards up on a wall in their house and then they vote on their favorite card for the year. I know I tend to open the cards quickly and say “Oh, that’s cute” but I don’t really stop to look at the cards as a piece of art and I should, because some are amazing. Even the photo postcards can be admired for the composition of the card or the photography itself. He said that the winning card gets put in a box with the other year’s winners so you have a showcase of the “best-of-the-best” in Christmas-themed art. You could also make a scrapbook or my daughter had the idea of making a story book using the winning cards as the illustrations. I’m totally digging that idea and she is on it.
Here’s an idea to make the voting easier. Have everyone in the family pick their top 3 favorite cards. Take down all of the rest off the wall. Now you have a smaller selection. Then have everyone choose 3 favorites again. Keep whittling it down until you have 3 cards total on the wall. Have everyone explain what they like best about their favorite card and why it should win. For the final vote, have everyone write their favorite on a piece of paper so it’s an anonymous vote and crown the winner. If it is a tie or no one can agree, then Mom’s pick wins. Why? You shouldn’t even have to ask.
Here’s another great idea to recycle and get more out of your Christmas cards. Aubrey at The Mother Huddle blog had a great idea for making a Christmas card photo collage. Read her post on how to do it.
Any other ideas of what to do with your Christmas cards?
I was thrilled to be invited to WGN-TV today to share my ideas for a Kid-Friendly New Year’s Eve Party. Watch the video and let me know what you think. What do you normally do for New Year’s Eve? If you stay home with the kids, how do you celebrate?
For more information on my party ideas, check the write-up on the WGN site or my last blog post.
For those of you who live in the Chicagoland area, I will be conducting a workshop at Make A Messterpiece in Glenview tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. and next Wednesday, December 15th at 6 p.m. on How to Create Fun & Enduring Family Holiday Traditions.
Here’s what I will be covering:
The Holidays are a great opportunity to start new family traditions or rediscover long-held family Holiday traditions that you and your kids will look forward to every year. Traditions are the glue that bind a family together but more importantly, provide opportunities for fun.
Sue Kirchner, Family Fun Coach, will share ideas on how to strengthen existing and start new family Holiday Traditions to create memories and laughter. She’ll share tips on conducting research on your family’s Holiday traditions, identifying which traditions mean the most to you and your kids, and ideas on updating long-held family traditions. She’ll also share some great ideas for new Holiday Traditions as well as favorite Holiday activities that the Chicagoland area has to offer.
Workshops are about 30 minutes long, free and you can bring your kids. If you haven’t been in to see Make A Messterpiece yet, definitely come and check it out. Your kids will have a blast in the various creative studio stations.
Contact me at sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com for more details. Hope to see you there. It will be fun!
To make a holiday tradition more fun and memorable, don’t forget to “Make it a Party.” No one said that you have to limit family traditions to just family. Some of our favorite Holiday traditions involve our best friends or neighbors:
Every Christmas, we have a gift exchange with some of our closest friends. It’s like Christmas Eve Lite.
We always try to invite friends to our Holiday meals who might be home alone that year.
We also meet our best friends every year for the Fourth Presbyterian Church Holiday Concert (http://www.fourthchurch.org/concerts.html#december)in downtown Chicago. We have gone for several years now and the kids love it. We head down to the Church for their Tower Brass concert and then walk around Michigan Ave. looking at the lights before grabbing dinner. It’s the perfect way to celebrate the season and experience the beauty of the city during the Holidays. (This year the concert is Dec. 18th at 5 p.m.)
Our neighborhood had a tradition of having a house decorating contest with a snowman theme. Each house on our block tries to decorate with as many snowmen as possible. We would all meet for a party at a neighbor’s house. During the party the whole group would put on their coats and march around the block in the dark and the cold, voting on which house had the best snowman “spirit.” Try it with your neighbors this year and let the competition and laughter begin.
Last year, one of the neighbors organized a Caroling party for some Holiday fun.
Every year two friends and I meet up for a Girls Night Out Holiday Tea at a swanky hotel downtown. While we might not pull it off every year, it does get us talking and reminiscing during December, so we don’t lose touch. I look forward to the thought of Holiday Tea just as much as actually having it. (more…)
Looking for a way to spice up your family’s Holiday Traditions this year? I suggest you Be Creative and Try Something New to add a little variety to your Holiday Season and make it more fun this year.
While we all love traditions and look forward to them every year because they provide a foundation for the family’s Holiday activities, it doesn’t mean you can’t adapt or update the tradition or try something new entirely. Variety is the spice of life! What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t like the new activity and you don’t do it again next year.
So, instead of putting on your Santa Hat, put on your thinking caps and get the whole family to brainstorm some creative ways to amp up your existing Holiday Traditions. If your family has a tradition of cutting down a real tree every year, try wearing Santa Hats or dressing like lumberjacks this year to give the event a little silliness and flair. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, be adventurous and try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild. Do all the girls in your family get together for Holiday Tea? Ask everyone to wear an audacious hat to make the affair more elegant and/or goofy.
If your family seems a little burned out on the tried and true family traditions, be adventurous this year and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. Who knows? It may become a new favorite. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you’ve never had a real Christmas tree, try cutting one down this year and see if you like the difference. If your kids are a little older now, try going to Midnight Mass. Invite other people to your Hannukah celebration to teach them about your traditions. Try making your menorah this year instead of using the family favorite. Or, buy a candle making set and have the whole family make candles this year for the Celebration of Light. (I’m not Jewish but I asked my friends about their traditions and looked and online for ideas. I found a really nice article on Hannukah traditions to do with your kids. Let me know what you think.)
Our Elf on the Shelf Family Holiday Tradition started up again yesterday. My kids were so psyched. They have been asking for days when “Jack” was coming and so we officially started December 1st. We’ve been playing this fun Hide ‘n Seek game every Christmas for the past 4 years now. Now that my kids are older and we’ve been doing this for awhile, I wanted some creative ways to have even more fun with our Elf this year. Here are a few ideas that I thought up and some fun ones I found online. I’ll be adding more as I get inspired throughout the next 20ish days.
Watch the Video
The creators of Elf on the Shelf put together a super cute video on how the Elves get ready for the Christmas season. You can watch it with the kids here.
Catch them in the Act
These Elves are photogenic. While the kids are sleeping or at school, take some funny photos of the Elves raiding the fridge or peeking in the wrapped presents or sleeping with the cat. Take them off center and close-up so it looks like the Elf took his or her own picture.
Elf Letters
My daughter loves to write letters. She writes some for Santa, Rudolph, Buddy from the Elf movie, the Tooth Fairy, the Pumpkin Fairy and our St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun. So have your kids write a note or letter to your Elf and maybe he’ll answer overnight. Want to make it even funnier – write the letter in an “Elf” language that no one understands or have the Elf write backwards so the kids have to hold the note up to a mirror to read.
The Elf was Here
Leave clues around the house that show that the Elf was moving around. A cereal box tipped over, Christmas cards out and on the floor, little footprints on the kitchen table or even have the Elf write his or her name out using raisins, Cheerios, legos or in some spilled flour. Here’s a cute idea – spill some flour out on the counter and then have the Elf make a snow angel in the flour.
Bake Up Some Fun
When the kids come downstairs for breakfast, won’t they be surprised to find a fresh batch of Christmas cookies on the kitchen counter that the Elf “baked” overnight?
Here are some very fun ideas I found online that would appeal to older kids or teens to keep the fun going.
Don’t Let the Elf Drive the Car
I read that a family would put their Elf in the driver’s seat of the car up on phone books or books so it looked like he was joy riding at night. Park the car in a crazy position, backwards, or out on the street to show that the Elf was out on the town and really shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
Elves are Socially Savvy
I read about some families setting up Facebook, Twitter or email accounts to talk with their teens or tweens or keep a Cyber “eye” on who’s naughty or nice online. The Elves can also find funny Christmas inspired sites to forward to the kids.
Fun in the “Off” Season
My kids always joke about what “Jack” our Elf does on his time off. What the heck does he do the other 11 months of the year? I think it would be a blast to give the Elf to friends or family you know who are traveling and ask them to take a picture of the Elf in that location. You know, like the gnome in the movie Amelie. The Elf can then send postcards or photos to the kids to keep the fun going all year long.
There are so many fun things to do this Holiday Season. Make sure you and your family plan to spend time together during this crazy busy time of year. For some inspiration, check out the post I wrote on 5 Simple Ideas for Holiday Family Fun over at the Parents Tested, Parents Approved blog.
I’ll be adding more ideas here on my site as the season progresses.
Let me know what you and your family will be doing to have fun this Season.
We received another great Family Holiday Tradition submission from Ginger S. in Austin, TX. Thank you for sharing, Ginger! Everyone, keep these family tradition memories coming. We love them!
Two of my favorite family Christmas traditions are: The hanging of the pickle ornament and a surprise for the individual that finds it and horses.
The pickle tradition came from my husband’s family. After we married, his Mom gifted us with a pickle ornament for our own tree. One of the first things our family does on Christmas morning is look for the Christmas Pickle.
I suppose I have always had a tremendous love of horses. Growing up, my brother and I always wanted a horse. When I was about 8, I awoke on Christmas morning, looked out my window and saw a real horse tied to a tree in our back yard. My brother and I spent the day wearing the horse out as we rode around our yard and up and down the neighborhood streets. Late in the evening our Uncle appeared and offered to keep the horse at his farm. We often spent many fun days at his farm riding our Christmas horse.
My daughter’s love for horses surfaced before her first Christmas. She constantly chose horse toys to play with and picked out pictures of horses from books and magazines. She started her riding lessons at age 6, saved enough money to buy her own horse at age 9, and owned 5 horses by the time she went to college on a scholarship she earned through her horse projects. Beginning with her first Christmas, Santa put a horse ornament in her Christmas stocking. This Christmas Santa will leave her 41st horse ornament.
My granddaughter continues the tradition with a great love for horses. Santa now also places a horse ornament in her Christmas stocking each year.
As Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn, one of our family’s favorite Holiday movies, “I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For”:
A husband who loves me and lets me pursue my passions both personally and professionally
A son who makes me pull my hair out, but makes me laugh like nobody’s business
A daughter who can amaze me with how bravely she fights Type 1 diabetes and make me smile with her artwork
A kitchen filled with donuts
A cat who can calm me and put me to sleep by purring in my ear
A smaller, weirder cat who is so funny looking I can’t stop smiling when I see him
An huge extended family that we can have fun with
A pair of red shoes
A lovely, renovated house that is warm and cozy
Incredibly friendly neighbors
Friends who get my sense of humor and love to come out and play with me and my hair-brained ideas
A beautiful, furry dog who is still with us this Thanksgiving
The smell of turkey and gravy in my kitchen
Customers and friends who support my business so I can share my passion for having more fun with family and bring smiles to as many families as I can. Thank you!
I am grateful for you and I hope that you have plenty to be thankful for today and your day is full of “Chocolate Cake Moments.” Have fun with your family. I’m off to eat turkey with my family!
Sue Kirchner
Chief Fun Officer
www.ChocolateCakeClub.com
www.ChocolateCakeMoments.com
On Thankgiving, did you ever have to sit at the Kids’ Table? I distinctly remember being banished to the dark, dank basement to eat with the other messy kids on major Holidays. I didn’t like it. So, I was thrilled when I saw TipJunkie.com’s post on Kids’s Table Decorating Ideas. Some of these ideas are so cute and creative!!!!! If our kids table had looked like this, I would still be sitting there as an adult.
So, get crafting and your kids are sure to be thankful that they aren’t eating in the dark, boring basement.
Here is another family Holiday tradition sent to us from Erin B. in IL. She shares her family’s tradition where the kids got to open one present after Church on Christmas Eve, ending hours of anticipation. She always remembers these “first” presents of the Holiday because they were from her Great Grandmother, they were handmade, and they were the first gift they were allowed to open on Christmas Eve. Thanks for sharing the story and the photo Erin!
As a child growing up in Round Lake Beach, IL, our house was the center for family on Christmas. Those who had traveled from out of town (Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles) found themselves sleeping in my bed or on the sofa sleeper. Many children today would be mortified to be resorted to sleeping in the same bed as a sibling. However, my brother and I couldn’t have been happier. We knew that no matter how much we fought with each other throughout the year, we could contain ourselves for that one glorious day when we would awake to find the tree adorned with presents underneath.
Weeks before the big day, our house would be flooded with packages of presents from family members who could not make the trek to our house. It took a lot of patience on the part of my brother and myself not to sneak a peek at those colorfully decorated boxes. On Christmas Eve, following the 7pm church service, we were allowed to open the present from our Great Grandmother. This present was never anything too extravagant as her funds were limited, but rather it was something that was handmade by her. The fact that this gift was handmade was of course special to us but it was because it was the “first” present that I truly believe it meant more to us. To this day, I still have those handmade presents, though my Great Grandmother is long gone.
As a new mother of two, I intend to carry this tradition over to my young children as I believe every child should remember their “first” present every Christmas.
Did your family have a tradition of opening certain gifts first? Please send us your Holiday Traditions stories. We’d love to post them and share the fun.
You know Holiday Traditions don’t always have to be about family. One of my favorite traditions is a Mom’s Night Out. For a few years now, three of us girl friends have been getting together in December to have Holiday Tea. So civilized! Chicago has some amazing places for tea – the Drake Hotel, the Peninsula Hotel, the Russian Tea Room. We meet, drink, eat and exchange some gifts. I dig the champagne, exotic teas, and the cute little sweet tray. I look forward to it every year. (While the food is better at the Peninsula, I like the Drake best for it’s traditional decor.)
Here are some other ideas for outings with your bestest Mom friends. Take some time for yourself during the Holiday Season to unwind and recharge. After all, if Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
1. Shopping Spree – Kill two birds with one stone and organize an outing to get your Holiday shopping done. Head on over to that new Mall you’ve been dying to visit. Or take the train and go to the big stores downtown. It’s always more fun when you have someone helping you shop for those impossible people on your list.
2. Cookie Swaps – Do you and your friends like to bake? Get a cookie swap going this year. CreativeMama.com has all the tips on How to Host a Cookie Swap. Stand around the kitchen with some cookie dough martinis and bake up a storm. Put on some music and dance while you’re at it. (Make sure your husband takes the kids to the movies. You don’t want them to die of shame while you boogie and sing.)
3. Holiday Wine Tasting – Do you have a local winery or gourmet wine shop in your area? Call and see if they will give you a tour or a mini wine tasting class. You can tell your hubby that you are going to find the perfect wine for Holiday dinner but we all know you are going for the fun. They may even have little snacks. Bonus!
4. Nutcracker Ballet – I love the Nutcracker Ballet. We are lucky in Chicago to have the Joffrey Ballet perform the Nutcracker every year. I’ve seen numerous versions and noboby does it better than Joffrey. I fortunately have a husband who doesn’t mind going to the ballet with me. However, many of my friends don’t. So, this is the perfect excuse to get together with the girls and get your sugar plum fairy fix.
5. Cooking Class – Another option for a fun evening out with the gals is a cooking class. If you don’t already have a favorite place for cooking classes, ask your friends what they recommend or look online. Some Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table stores have Holiday themed cooking classes. You can even have a private chef come to your house and teach the class in a more comfortable setting. Learn how to make killer Holiday desserts or New Years Eve party appetizers.
I have asked some friends and family to tell me about their Holiday Traditions or their favorite memories of the Holidays. This first post is from my mother, Roberta, and her Holiday Tradition of Tinsel on the Tree.
We had 4 children in our family and always spent Christmas Eve with my maternal grandparents and all our cousins. My grandparents lived in Oak Park, IL. in a big house or so I thought at the time. They had a side driveway and portico. When you entered on Christmas Eve the dining room glass doors were shut with a drape on them. In the living room in front of the fireplace, was a very tall unadorned Christmas tree and a ladder.
My grandfather would call each of his grandchildren to help him decorate the tree. Depending on your age, dexterity and patience, you either placed an ornament on the tree or an icicle one by one. No throwing or bunching of the icicles. This whole project could take quite some time and get very boring but I loved the tinsel. That was my job and I thought I did it the best. When we were finished, the dining room doors were opened for food and drink. My parents, aunts and uncles were starving by this time but my grandfather didn’t care. The tree was important. It reminded him of Germany.
To this day more than 50 years later, we put tinsel or some type of “one by one” shimmer on the tree.
I do remember that we always had tinsel on our tree growing up. Gold, it had to be gold. I tried to continue the tradition in my house but sadly we have cats. You know, they eat the tinsel and you find it later in a very unsavory state.
So, friends, please send me your favorite Holiday traditions and photos. I would love to start a collection of memories.
Thanksgiving dinner is over and everyone has finished grazing. It was dead silent during the meal because you just can’t shovel that great food in fast enough. But now, everyone is too tired or stuffed to get up from the table. No one wants to stand up first and show the group that they had to unbutton their pants to make room for more stuffing. (Come on! I’m not the only one who does this, right.) so, you’re staring at each other with nothing to do. Don’t panic! Start a conversation game.
Prior to dinner, write a couple of fun questions down on pieces of paper. Put them in a hat and start picking random questions to ask everyone at the table. Even though you think you know everything about your relatives, trust me, you don’t. We learn more about each other playing these conversation games and it’s fun. (Tip: Have someone write these memories down in a special notebook or video tape it. It’s a great way to preserve some of the grandma and grandpa’s memories.)
Here are some suggestions for questions that should appeal to all ages:
1. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
2. What is your favorite book?
3. What is your favorite movie?
4. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
5. If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would it be?
6. What is your favorite Holiday tradition and why?
7. What was your very first job?
8. What was/is your favorite kids show?
9. What is the one thing you like most about the person sitting next to you?
10. What are you most thankful for this year?
Looking for some fun ideas to do with the family around Thanksgiving? Here are a few of my favorites as well as some great ideas from other Mom bloggers.
Get Active! Our town hosts a Turkey Trot 1 Mile and 5K race every Thanksgiving morning. While we usually travel out of town to visit family on Thanksgiving so we have never been in town to participate, several of our neighbors run as a family every year. It’s a great way to burn the calories before you pack in the carbs!
Bake Up Memories. We have a family tradition on Thanksgiving Day. After we gorge ourselves and the boys go watch football or take a nap on the couch, the women folk go back in the kitchen and make our favorite Holiday cookies. Each person brings their favorite recipe and we bake, bake, bake. (It keeps us awake and standing so we’re burning the Turkey dinner calories, right?)
When we started this tradition it was fun to see what Grandma’s favorite cookie recipe was when she was a kid. Now that she is gone, we still make those cookies to remember her by. The other benefits of this tradition are that everyone goes home with a plate of assorted cookies. Freeze them and pull them out for your Holiday parties. If that’s not a stress-bustin’ tip, I don’t know what is.
Family traditions are wonderful, aren’t they? The anticipation. The preparation. Knowing that your family has done this in the past and will continue to do so makes an activity powerful. Hopefully, these traditions are also a load of fun, mostly because you spend time together as a family!
The Winter Holiday Season offers great opportunities to have fun traditions with your family. Baking special cookies, throwing parties, caroling, sledding, cutting down a real tree, etc. Whether you are carrying on family traditions or starting new ones, there are so many options. However, the season is short and there is a lot to do – gift buying, baking, wrapping, Holiday parties, decorating, and writing and addressing cards, to name a few. Agh! Don’t let the stress of the Holiday Season overwhelm you where you forget to have fun or start traditions your family will look forward to year after year. After all, the Holidays are all about family.
You may already have a few traditions in place but I want to inspire you to start a new one this year. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But it’s also nice to just relax, stay in, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home.
What is a tradition? According to Merriam-Webster:
a tradition is an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom).
It is also:
the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
It is essential that they traditions continue year after year to become ingrained in your family’s culture. So, don’t let any of the Holiday stress get in the way of carrying on the fun.
Tune in tomorrow for my “Recipe” on How to Create Strong Family Holiday Traditions.
Cake + Spooky Creativity + Family Together Time in the Kitchen = Chocolate Cake Moment!
Every year the Cub Scouts hosts a Cake Bake in October and it has become a family tradition to make a scary Halloween cake. (There are themes every year but we just go for spookiness. What can I say? It’s how we roll.) This year we won for Most Original in our class with our “Scary Rats Eating Cheese” Cake. Tomorrow, we’ll tell you how we made it.
I am constantly amazed by the creativity these kids come up with every year, so I thought I would share some of the cake designs our family and our Cub Scout Pack have cooked up over the past few years.
Last year we won Most Original with our “A Cake Made of Vegetables? Scary!”
The year before the theme was Your Favorite Book. We chose Frankenstein. My son even dressed up as Igor. We won for Best Theme!
Pull Zee Switch!
Here are some of my favorites from the past few years:
Since this is our last year in Cub Scouts, I’ll have to make sure we keep this family tradition alive next Halloween.
Have you made any Halloween cakes? I’d love to see your cake creations. Send me your cakes pics to sue (at) chocolatecakeclub.com and I’ll post them on the blog.
Yeah, today is the first official day of Autumn! This is my family’s favorite time of year. The weather is cooler, the trees look beautiful as they say goodbye to the year, we break out the spooky Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations, and we go gaga for Apple Cider Donuts. (Man, I love a good donut.)
We make sure we don’t miss out on a minute of fun by creating a Family Fun Plan. We pick a night and at dinner everyone throws out ideas of what they want to do and we then schedule our activities on the calendar. We now know if we need to buy tickets to anything, get invitations out, or have the house clean by a certain date. (Oh yes, our social calendar dictates when the house gets cleaned.) Once our activities are written in stone (OK, just in the planner – but in PEN!) we have some fun times to look forward to.
Here are some of our ideas for having more family fun this Fall. If you are looking for more ideas check your local park districts, libraries, YMCAs, and Children’s Museums for fall events.
Top 10 Ideas for Fall Family Fun
1. Apple Orchard/ Making Caramel Apples
2. Fall Foliage Drive
3. Visit a Pumpkin Farm
4. Leaf Pile Forts, Mazes & Piles
5. Hiking/ Photo Scavenger Hunt in your local Forest Preserve
6. Creating & Decorating for Halloween
7. Throw a Halloween Party – for kids and/or adults
8. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession
9. Neighborhood Flag Football Party
10. Flashlight Corn Maze Adventures
We found this article at the DomesticCents.com blog on Frugal Fall Family Fun Ideas that we wanted to share. I love their photos and Scarecrow idea.
I hope this list has inspired you to get out your calendar and start some planning. Check back for more ideas and tips on how to have more family fun this fall season. I’d love to hear what you love to do with your family, so leave me a comment.
Summer’s the perfect time to turn your kids on to the joys of a ball game. Whether you are playing, watching or both, it’s fun to get the whole family involved in a ball game. Here are some ideas on how to have a sporting good time this summer.
Attend a sporting event
Summer is the perfect time to take the kids to a ball game. Whether you fork over the money to see a professional team or support some small, local teams, going to see a game is a perfect family fun experience. We live in Chicago so we (really my husband) are Cubs fans. I personally hate baseball – I think watching my cat sneeze is more exciting – but I do LOVE going to the ball park. Especially if you live in a city with a stadium that has so much tradition and personality, pay the money and take the kids at least once. Wrigley Field is a blast! Here’s a tip – if your team is not that good, and you wait until the end of the summer, you may be able to find tickets easier and even cheaper than face value by taking season tickets off of somebody’s hands.
The Boys of Summer
However, don’t feel like you have to support the big city teams. Check out the Minor Leagues Teams. Our kids love to watch the Schaumburg Flyer games. I find that the small, farm league teams are more family-friendly. There’s a lot of entertainment between innings to keep everyone in the family amused, even if you don’t like baseball.
A friend of ours has a wonderful tradition where every summer he, his brother, and his nephew travel to a different major league baseball stadium to see a ball game. It is their goal to see a game in every stadium in the Major League. They fly or drive, share a hotel room, and spend the summer day experiencing a ball game and new stadium experience. How fun!
The Boys of Late Summer
However, baseball isn’t the only game in town. Check out professional soccer or arena football teams. Starting in August, NFL pre-season kicks in. You can get tickets to pre-season games. Or, find out where the team practices during the summer and call to see if you can bring your kids to watch. Sometimes they open up practice to the public on certain days.
Finally, our favorite sporting events are college football games. My son lives to go see the Iowa Hawkeye football games with the family or meeting up with Uncles and cousins to enjoy the game. There are almost always games during Labor Day weekend once school is back in session so take the kids to see you old Alma Mater kick off the season.
Organize a Neighborhood Ball Game
Now that your family has watched their favorite team in action, you’re probably itching to play yourself. Why not organize a neighborhood or family softball, soccer, or football game? If someone has a large backyard or field nearby, choose the location, assign snacks and drinks and get everyone out on the field. (If some family members or neighbors don’t want to play – no problem. They can be cheerleaders, referees, scorekeepers or the all important snack managers.
Friday Night Lights
Does anyone in your neighborhood have lights on their driveway basketball hoop? If so, Night Game! We do and it’s pretty fun to have a Friday Night Neighborhood basketball tournament.
We hope these ideas help you have some more fun with the family this summer or inspire you to start a “sporting event” tradition with the family.
Tell us, which team does your family root for most? Do you have any “sports-oriented” family traditions? We’d love to hear about them.
Mom, you may be jumping for joy that the kids are finally going back to school, but the kids might be a little bummed their summer freedom is over. Just because school is starting, it doesn’t mean you can’t have one last day in the sun. Help your kids to see the last day of summer as something to look forward to by creating a tradition where you do something fun as a family to celebrate. Mom and Dad, see if you can take the day off of work so you can do something fun together. Here are some ideas on how to celebrate:
Hit the pool one last time.Your kids have probably been swimming all summer but that’s no reason not to go again. Enjoy the sun and get that last tan of the season.
Have a block party. Invite the neighborhood kids and parents over. Share your summer vacation highlights as well as talk about who has which teacher, new outfits, bus schedules, etc. The kindergarten kids can ask the older kids for help with getting on the bus.
Run Around. It’s still summer, so go outside. Be active and enjoy the outdoors on this last day. Your kids are going to be sitting in a class room for the next 9 months so release as much energy as you can. Go to the local forest preserve and play games, hit the theme park one last time, go for a long bike ride in another part of town, or go horseback riding if it’s available near you.
Go see a movie during the day. If your outdoor activities get rained out or you just want to relax, this will be the last time to take advantage of that early bird, weekday discounts to see the latest family flick. It will be a rare pleasure for the kids to see a movie during the day, just because you can.
Cook your kid’s favorite meal. Ask your kids what they want as a celebratory meal and have fun making it together. Make cookies in the shape of a school bus or apple that they get to take to school on the first day. Make homemade trail mix or snack mix that they can take the first week of school. Simple, but fun.
A blog we love to read is Gourmet Mom-on-the-Go and she has a totally cool idea for a Celebration Sandwich for her kids. Check out this fun recipe!
Does your family do anything to celebrate the last day of summer before school starts?
It’s Day 18 of our Summer Family Fun Challenge. Are you having fun yet?
Today’s idea is to take a trip around the world. If you can afford to that literally, then by all means, Bon Voyage. For the rest of us, pick a day, pick a country and then spend time celebrating it’s culture. For example, if you pick Italy:
Go online and look up some fun facts about Italy.
Go to the library and check out some Italian music or an Italian movie.
If you know someone from Italy, invite them over for dinner and have the kids ask them questions about what it’s like to live there.
Get some language instruction tapes and learn some words in Italian.
If your kids like animals, learn which animals are indigenous to that country.
Read about an Italian family tradition that sounds interesting and try it at home.
Grab an Italian cookbook, have each family member choose a dish they would like to try. Spend the time in the kitchen cooking and experimenting together.
If you are fortunate to have an international trip coming up, then definitely use this time to learn more about the country and get the kids excited about what they might see.
Don’t know which country to pick? Research your family ancestry. Or, have everyone in the family write down ideas on a piece of paper. Throw the paper into a jar and pick. Or, hang up a world map and let someone close their eyes and point to a country. (If you don’t have a map, use our World Map Kids Placemat or World Map Sticker Set.)
Want even more help? Try our Playful Chef French Cooking Set.
This kids cooking set includes kid-sized cooking tools, recipes for popular French food, and fun information about French history, vocabulary and geography.
Happy Monday! It’s Day #17 of our 30 Day Summer Fun Challenge and our idea today is to learn something new as a family.
Is there anything you’ve always wanted to learn how to do? Speak Spanish, play guitar, play golf, tennis, take better photos, dance the tango, or cook a perfect souffle? Why not get the whole family involved and take a group lesson or start a new family hobby? (I suggested we all learn how to balance the checkbook but they “booed” my idea.)
Families that play together, stay together. Learning a new skill, hobby or sport is a fun way to spend time together and expand your mind. You’ll all be starting at the same level – newbie – and it will be interesting to see who in the family really takes to the lessons.
Find a class
Contact your local park district or community college to see the continuning education courses that they offer. If some of the classes look interesting for the whole family, sign everyone up. Look online for some local language classes or check your local health clubs, park district or YMCA for swimming, tennis, golf or even scuba diving lessons. Since you will have 3 or more “students” in the class, it might be worthwhile to find an instructor and see if you could arrange for private lessons in your home.
Now, show off your new skills
Once you’ve discovered your new skill and if everyone likes it, plan your next family vacation so you can apply this new knowledge or start a new family tradition.
Take Spanish lessons then vacation in Mexico or Spain
Take Cajun cooking lessons and then plan a trip to New Orleans
Take golf lessons and then swing away in California
Learn to scuba dive and head to the Caribbean
Take some wildlife photography lessons and then head to Yellowstone National Park
If no one really takes to the new skill, there’s always next summer to try something else. My husband loves to golf and my kids have been taking lessons for the past two summers. I always swore I would never golf (after having waitressed in a snobby golf club in high school and swearing I would “NEVER” be like those people) however, I’m rethinking taking lessons because it would be a fun thing to do as a family or with another family. (If I’m no good, I could always lay on top of the golf cart and just get a tan. That’s quality time together, right?)
Extra Practice
Ask around and see if another family you know loves the same skill or hobby. Invite them over to practice together. The more the merrier.
If you are going to tackle learning Spanish, we have some fun products to help practice with kids.
Or if you are going to take cooking lessons, get the kids excited about the lessons with their own apron and cooking utensils, like our best selling Playful Chef Kids Cooking Kit.
Is your family taking lessons to learn something new? If not, what do you think would interest them?
Our kids have their last day of school tomorrow. They are done on a Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Huh? (The fact that they have to go to school for 2 hours one day is completely redonkulous, but that’s a rant on how the school system dislikes working parents and the environment, which is best saved for another day.)
Let’s talk about celebrating the last day of school with your kids. They are elated right? So why not join in on the enthusiam, parents, and do something fun to mark the beginning of summer break? Take the afternoon off of work or dedicate a day for pure fun. Here’s some ideas:
1. Hit the pool! Let the splashing begin. Head on over to your local pool and start working on that gorgeous tan while splashing around with the kids.
2. Neighborhood Fire Pit, Anyone? At least in our neighborhood, if you put a fire pit out, they will come. Invite the neighborhood families over to celebrate together. Share your summer vacation plans, discuss the highlights of the past school year, talk about starting a gournet club or how mosquitos are the plague of man’s existence. You know, whatever makes you happy.
3. Run Around. It’s summer, so go outside. Be active and enjoy the outdoors. Go to the local forest preserve and play games, hit your favorite theme park, go for a long bike ride in another part of town, or go horseback riding if it’s available near you.
4. Go see a movie during the day. If your outdoor activities get rained out or you just want to relax, take advantage of that early bird, weekday discounts to see the latest family flick. It will be a rare pleasure for the kids to see a movie during the day, just because you can.
5. Cook your kid’s favorite meal. Ask your kids what they want as a celebratory meal and have fun making it together.
What are you going to do to celebrate the last day of school?
At a loss for ideas this weekend to have fun with your family? Memorial Day is in two weeks but that’s just too long to wait. We want something to look forward to NOW. Why not create your own Family Holiday? We all love holidays right? Special foods, special activities, time spent with people we love (or at least like.) Maybe you don’t get to take off of work for your own invented Holiday, but any reason to celebrate ranks high on the family fun meter.
Chocolate Festival – Have chocolate at every meal. Figure out how to add chocolate to every dish you eat that day. Search for recipes online for inspiration.
Our Family Gives Back Day – Spend the day helping out various charities. Call some of your local charities and ask if there is something you can do as a family to help out.
Family Adventure Day – Grab a map with a 2 hour driving radius from where you live. Have one of the kids close their eyes and stick a pin into the map. You now have a destination for your adventure. Look up the town on Google and see what interesting things or restaurants there might be in that town and head out to discover a new place.
Maybe if your family holiday idea really takes off, Hallmark will start creating greeting cards for it.
What ideas do you have for creating your own Family Holiday? They can be funny. We like funny.
I was lost in the social media click-through haze this morning when I came across a site that made me smile in childish glee. (I can still do that even as a jaded adult.) Jim’s Pancakes is the coolest site about a dad just trying to make some pancakes for his little girl. But, oh, the pancakes he makes. What a cool Dad!
I love the creativity behind the pancakes and admire his dedication to this fun cooking endeavor, but what I love the most is the memory and special moments he is creating with his daughter. What a cool Dad/ Daughter thing to do. Wouldn’t that be a cool tradition to start with your family. Even if you only did it one day a year.
Keep on flipping them ‘jacks, Jim. (Any time you need a tester, count me in.)
Mother’s Day is coming up and I’m looking forward to it. I have to admit, I didn’t use to. For a couple of years when my kids were toddlers, without fail my children would act their absolute worst on Mother’s Day or my birthday. The minute we walked into a restaurant to celebrate or tried to have a nice, relaxing breakfast at home, my kids would decide to explore and hone their obnoxious, whiny skills. Because really, what better day to bring your “A game” or what better way to really test how much your Mother loves you, than to act like a poop on Mother’s Day?
However, we’ve grown out of that stage and I really do like having fun with my kids on Mother’s Day. We have a tradition at our house that I love. Read about My Mother’s Day Tradition to get some ideas on how to have fun with the family on your very Special Day! While you are reading, I’m going to go find some paper and start a petition to get every day declared Mother’s Day. Wish me luck!
There have been a lot of articles floating around the last few weeks (heck, years if you google the subject) on how important it is for families to eat a meal together. Families who spend quality time around the table talking and interacting have more well-adjusted children. What do they mean by well-adjusted? According to an article in Time.com: Healthier, less likely to do drugs, have sex, and learn to use a fork. According to the experts in the article, “A meal is about civilizing children. It’s about teaching them to be a member of their culture.” I totally want civilized children!
Our family has been making a special effort to have 4 – 5 meals together every week to make sure we connect and more importantly, have fun. Trust me, I know it’s hard for busy families to find the time to schedule quality time together but you have 21 chances a week to sit together and interact as a family. Surely, you can find 4 or 5 times to do it together. Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing ideas on how to find the time, make mealtime a little easier for Mom, and most importantly, have fun. Just because you are all sitting around a table together, it doesn’t mean you are connecting. You have to engage and I’ll give you some ideas on how.
We’ll be adding a few more ideas of our own over the next few days so check back. Just out of curiosity, how many times a week does everyone in your family sit down to eat together?
Today is a very special day for us for two reasons. First, it’s my son’s birthday. He turned 10 and is in the double digits now. Scary. In 6 more years he is going to be driving and he still can’t tie his shoes properly! I guess we need to hunker down and look into finding a shoe-tying tutor.
We have a tradition in our house where we set up our kids “guys” or “animals” at the table on the morning of their birthday. Their toys wish them a Happy Birthday and the kids love it. This morning, Star Wars Clones and Jedi wished him a Happy Birthday, while guarding his precious birthday chocolate donut.
Today is also a great day because it is National Chocolate Cake Day which for us, is on the same level as Halloween or Valentine’s Day. You know, a day to be celebrated … heavily, and with lots of ooey gooey treats!
Have a favorite recipe for Chocolate Cake or a fun way to celebrate this all important day? Please share! May your day be filled with Chocolate Cake Moments.
We created a pdf file of our Recipe for Creating Fun Family Holiday Traditions to make it easier for you to download and print for future reference. This “Recipe” includes on:
Tips on how to be more creative with your existing traditions
Planning advice to make sure these fun ideas get on your calendar
Questions to ask to help you pick the perfect Holiday tradition for your family
A blank monthly calendar for you to print and fill in a month’s worth of family fun or traditions
Finally, we give you our 10 Fun Family Holiday Traditions ideas to inspire you to create activities that your family will look forward to every year and remember forever. It’s all about creating more of those Chocolate Cake Moments when you are smiling, relaxed, and loving parenthood. Enjoy!
Here’s another day’s worth of fun ideas to do with your family this Holiday Season. Good tidings we wish to you, but no figgy pudding.
Watch: It’s Friday night and the kids can stay up so you can watch a longer Christmas show, so let’s start with a classic – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing reminds me more of Christmas as a kid then sitting in front of the TV waiting for the theme music saying that a special presentation was coming up and then watching Rudolph. In today’s age of DVDs and DVRs, kids don’t feel the same sense of “need” that we did growing up to not miss when the show was airing on TV. We had to stay home and be glued in front of the TV when this all important show was on. I think I can recite all of the lines to this one. My favorite character is Yukon Cornelius, of course. “Put some heart into it boy!” But I also love the Burl Ives score as he sings Silver and Gold. Leave a comment below and tell me about your favorite scene is.
Read:The Grinch. Enough said. (We’ll recommend watching it too in a different post but it is definitely worth reading the book as well.)
Bake: My second favorite Christmas cookies, that also remind me so much of my youth, were Spritz Cookie-Gun Cookies. (They call them cookie presses now but we always called it a cookie gun growing up.) My mother made these every year and I love them. However, I haven’t made them as an adult because I can never find a good cookie press. My brother made them last year when our family visited last Christmas and I think I must have eaten 4 dozen of them they just reminded me so much of childhood. We loved decorating them as kids. My favorites were the little flowers with the cinnamon hearts in the center. Grab a cookie press, check out this recipe and introduce your kids to the magic of squeezing tasty dough out of a tube into shapes. They are muy tasty.
Craft:Make these adorable Penguin Christmas ornaments, which we found over at Kaboose. http://crafts.kaboose.com/penguin-pals-ornaments.html
Pure Fun: More computer fun for the kids. Go to http://www.northpole.com/ and see all of the games and Christmas related activities. We liked the dancing Santa.
Leave us your ideas on how to have fun with your family during the Holidays or tell us what your remember about your childhood Christmas.
OK, I missed getting this post out yesterday and I apologize profusely. We were slammed with orders yesterday and then I had a Holiday party to go to in the evening, which is when I usually have the time to write. I had a few glasses of wine at the party and when I got home I decided to follow the wise advice of “Don’t drink and blog.” I think we are all safer that way. Anyway, here are my ideas for today.
DAY 3 – Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Watch: Another favorite of ours is Santa vs. the Snowman. Whether we watch this funny movie with 3-D glasses or not, I love the pop culture references in the movie. Elves battling snowmen with super jets in the North Pole appeals to the goof ball kid in me. I love Jonathan Winters and he makes a great Santa. Note: We took my son to see this movie in 3-D at an Omnimax theater when my son was 3. Big mistake. He freaked at the enormity of the screen and the 3-D objects hurtling at him in the movie. Watch it at home without the 3-D glasses if you think your kids might get a little nervous.
Read: We read Russell’s Christmas Magic by Rob Scotton before bed last night. The illustrations are so cute in these books. The red color for Santa and the “fixed-up sleigh” just jump off the page. Even though this is more of a toddler book, my kids still love to read it just for the illustrations.
Bake: When I was a kid I loved it when my Mom made Cornflake Marshmallow Wreath Cookies. They were gooey, had cinnamon hearts and turned your tongue green. Loved every bite! Here’s the recipe for these ultra-fun, kid-friendly, Cornflake Wreath Cookies from Kellogg’s.
Note: Send us your favorite Holiday cookie recipe and we’ll include it in one of our future posts.
Craft: How about this Stuffed Felt Santa Ornament, that we found over at Kaboose. This would be a cute gift for Grandma and Grandpa, friends at school, or even teachers.
Pure Fun: In today’s day and age of GPS and microchip tracking technology, you’ll be glad to know that even Santa can’t stay off of the grid. Have fun with your kids tracking Santa as he makes his way across the globe at www.noradsanta.org. You can play games online and even check the weather at the North Pole. Want even more? Sign up for Facebook or Twitter updates of what Santa is doing. Now who’s who to see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice?
Send us your favorite ideas and we may include them in one of our future posts. Check back later tonight for Day 4!
I hope you were inspired by our ideas yesterday to start some Holiday Family Fun at your house. Here are some more ideas to get the family smiling and saying “Wow, you are the coolest Mom on the planet!” (OK, maybe that’s a stretch but the Holidays are for dreams, right?)
DAY 2 Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Read: Tonight we read Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. This fun board book is not only cute, but inspires some ideas for outdoor, snowy fun. Who wouldn’t love to see snowmen come to life at night and cruise around town?
Note: We just came across a great idea at another Mom’s blog site and thought we would share. Over at This Girl Loves to Talk, their family has a tradition of wrapping 24 Christmas themed books. Starting December 1st, every night the kids get to unwrap a book and read together. Pure genius!
Watch: We didn’t have time to watch any Holiday shows tonight but if we did, we would have watched A Charlie Brown’s Christmas. The dance scene is too funny, (come on, do your Linus Dance!) but the best part is when Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas. In fact, this year since our house is all ripped up for renovations, we have no room to put up our Christmas tree. The kids were really bummed until I went out and got the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. We now have it sitting in our family room waiting to be dwarfed by wrapped presents.
Bake: Our most requested cookie in the Kirchner household for the Holidays are classic Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies or Peanut Blossoms. (I personally don’t eat them, but sometimes you have to bake one for the team.) There are a million recipes out there for this cookie but our family seems to prefer the one in the Gooseberry Patch Old Fashioned Country Cookie Recipe Book. Definitely get the kids involved in baking these. They love doing the stuff that I find mind-numbing like unwrapping the kisses and rolling the dough into little balls.
Craft: AmazingMoms.com has a very cute idea to make Reindeer Candy Holders. Very cute and you can immediately fill them with Chocolate when you are done for a truly Chocolate Cake Moment with the kids.
Pure Fun: If you live in a fun neighborhood, organize a Neighborhood Decorating Contest/ Party. One of our neighbors came up with the idea a few years ago of encouraging everyone to decorate the outsides of their houses with Snowmen. Then they threw a party inviting all of the neighbors. The night of the party, we all had to walk around the block in the cold and vote on which houses had the most “Snowman Spirit”. It was a blast and we continue to do it every year. It’s so funny to see a neighbor put out a new snowman decoration and everyone runs over to check it out and ask where they got it. True Holiday bonding.
Please share your ideas or other great ideas you have seen on other sites. We love to see them and share. Check in tomorrow for Day 3.
There are so many ways to have fun with your family around the Holidays. However, it’s very easy to get caught up in the stress and crazy-busy schedules during the Holidays that we forget to stop and have some fun. (What do you mean we forgot to get a present for your Spanish teacher? Why has the cat eaten all of the curling ribbon? I can’t wait for that gift to come out. Where did I put the Christmas cards that I bought last January on sale?) So, as a way to remind myself to plan some fun for the family every day during the Holiday Season and not become the Grinch, I will be sharing some fun ideas every day. From reading Holiday-themed books before bedtime to watching your favorite Christmas specials to finding that perfect craft or cookie recipe, I hope I can inspire you to do something every day to keep your family smiling during December. Smile and wave kids … smile and wave.
DAY 1 Holiday Family Fun Ideas
Read: Tonight we read Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. While my kids are a little too old for this picture book, it is still a Holiday favorite. The illustrations are too cute and the rhyming words are perfect for lulling everyone to sleep. (I want some of the cookies that Bear makes his friends!)
Watch: We didn’t have a lot of time to watch anything after dinner and homework but we snuck in one of my all time favorite Christmas shows – Ziggy’s Gift. I was a huge Ziggy fan growing up and the first time I saw this Christmas special I was bawling. Guess what?After watching again tonight, I’m still tearing up. I love this story about the true meaning of giving and forgiveness at Christmas. My kids love the thief. Go figure.
Bake: We are in the process of renovating our kitchen and haven’t had an oven for about 6 weeks now. Because I can’t bake, I have been dreaming about homemade Holiday cookies for several nights now. But if you have an oven, go ahead and make these with your kids. They love rolling the cookies into a ball and then rolling them in powdered sugar. Sure, it makes a mess. Sure, these cookies are pure butter. But that’s why I love them. Here’s a recipe that is close to how we make them, only we use ground pecans because the kids don’t like the texture of nut pieces in the cookie.
Craft: I’ve been on the hunt for some really cute but really easy Holiday crafts to do with the kids. You know the kind where I don’t need to spend all day shopping for supplies, doesn’t take three days of drying time to complete, and actually looks cute when finished. Well I found a fun site called Homemaking Fun and I liked their idea for making Magical Reindeer Food to sprinkle in the snow. If you are lucky, you’ll have everything you need in the house already.
Pure Fun: If your family has adopted an Elf on the Shelf, tonight is the night to start. At least in our house it is. (Some people start the day after Thanksgiving, some on December 6th which is St. Nicholas Day, and some on the 15th because they only want to hide the Elf for 10 nights.) You choose. Never heard of Elf on the Shelf? Well, this post explains it all.
We’ll be sharing ideas every day for 25 days but we’d love to hear your favorite way to have fun during the Holidays. Please share them by leaving a comment here. Check back tomorrow!
Another Holiday tradition that we do every year with the kids is decorate a Gingerbread House. We buy the kit where the pieces are already made and all we have to do is decorate. (Saves a huge amount of time!) We have even used old Halloween candy as additional decorations for the house as a way to get rid of the “less than desirable” candy that the kids never ate.
If you are looking for recipes to make the gingerbread pieces yourself, kits or tips on how to best tackle a gingerbread house barn raising, try the Fork & Bottle site.
One year we branched out and made a gingerbread stable since my daughter loves horses. We’ve also made a gingerbread train. You can find the gingerbread train kit here. We even found a Gingerbread Hannukah Cottage online. If you know of any other cool gingerbread kits out there, let us know. We’re always game for trying a new twist on a favorite family activity.
However, if you want to avoid the sticky mess and try something new this year, we found this great idea on the Alpha Mom site to build a cardboard Gingerbread House. Very cute!
Here’s a question for you. Does your family eat the gingerbread house after you have made it? We don’t. We let it sit out for a few days as decoration but we don’t eat it. (No, not the gum drop buttons!) However, we want to know if you do.
A Stimulus Package for Fun Family Holiday Traditions – 10 Ideas to Banish the Bah Humbugs!
Here’s a list of ideas to stimulate you into creating or adding enduring Holiday Traditions for your family. Have fun!
1. Holiday Tea Party. Mother & daughter, sisters, friends, Grandma & Granddaughters. Check out your favorite place or host one yourself.
2. Hide ‘n Seek Traditions. A fun way to usher in the Holiday Season is with Holiday hide and seek traditions like Elf on the Shelf , which we sell at www.ChocolateCakeClub.com because we love it so much, or the Christmas Pickle.
3. Bake Holiday Cookies. There is no better way to spend quality time with your family than in the kitchen cooking, eating and talking. Or, try a new cake recipe each year. Everyone at the table gets to vote on their favorite recipe. Check out our post on making Gingerbread Houses.
4. Create a Holiday Scrapbook. Together as a family, create a scrapbook of the previous Holiday family gathering. Everyone can decorate their own page and it’s a nice way to sit and talk about what you enjoyed last year.
5. Holiday Movie Marathon. Pick a day, keep your jammies on, and watch your favorite Christmas specials or movies. Everyone can choose their favorite show and you can watch them back-to-back together. If you have any home movies of Holidays past, this is the perfect time to watch.
6. The Competitive Holiday Spirit. Why not organize a Holiday Olympics to get the competitive juices flowing? If you have a Nintendo Wii console, your family can see who’s the best at bowling, tennis, or 3-Point Shoot-Out. Or, make a contest out of the Holiday tasks you need to do – Who can wrap a present the fastest? Who can untangle the first string of lights?
7. Extreme Gift Exchange. Sometimes the weirdest gifts are the most memorable. Why not inspire some creativity in your family by creating an oddball gift exchange? Have everyone in the family come up with some silly ideas for a gift theme and then sit back and laugh as the gifts are opened. Some ideas we have done in our family include:
Give a piece of funny (or incredibly ugly) artwork (kids and adults can draw pictures for their contribution, too)
Funny T-shirts
Socks (the uglier the better)
Pick a country out of a hat and buy a funny gift that represents that country
Choose a letter out of a hat and the gift must start with that letter
8. Have Fun Giving Back. Teach your kids the importance of helping others. Help pack Christmas Care Packages for the troops. Buy gifts from the giving trees at local libraries and YMCA for kids in need. Have a wrapping party where everyone in the family wraps their “giving” gift. Create cookie care packages for a local nursing home. Make bird seed “ornaments” with Styrofoam, peanut butter, and bird seed to decorate trees outside and feed the birds in winter.
9. Make the Annual Ornament. Every year, pick an ornament that everyone will make together. Put them on the tree or give them as gifts. Don’t forget to mark the year.
10. Create a Neighborhood Decorating Contest, Progressive Dinner or Tree Looking. Get all of your neighbors to put out Snowmen each year. Then have a party and ask everyone to vote on who has the best “themed” decorations. Or have a progressive dinner where people get to go “tree looking” and see everyone’s Holiday decorations.
Help us add to this list. Tell about some of your favorite Family Holiday Traditions.
Here is our last list of “ingredients” to help you brainstorm, plan and enjoy family Holiday traditions. To make your holiday traditions more fun and memorable, don’t forget to add these: “Make it a Party,” “Rediscover Your Family Room” and “Ask the Experts.”
Make it a Party. No one said that you have to limit family traditions to just family. (Some families need to bring in some ringers to add more fun to the proceedings. Hey, I’m just saying. Not every family is a barrel of monkeys.) Some of our favorite traditions involve our best friends or neighbors. Every Christmas, we have a gift exchange with some of our closest friends. We always try to invite friends to our Holiday meals who might be home alone that year. We also meet our best friends every year for the Fourth Presbyterian Church Holiday Concert in downtown Chicago. We have gone for several years now and the kids love it. We head down to the Church for the concert, performed by the Tower Brass, and then walk around Michigan Ave. looking at the lights before grabbing dinner. It’s the perfect way to celebrate the season and experience the beauty of the city during the Holidays. (FYI-This year the concert is Dec. 19th at 5 p.m.)
Our neighborhood has a tradition of having a house decorating contest with a snowman theme. Each house on our block tries to decorate with as many snowmen as possible. We then all meet for a party at a neighbor’s house. During the party the whole group puts on their coats and marches around the block in the dark and the cold, voting on which house has the best snowman “spirit.” Try it with your neighbors this year and let the competition and laughter begin. (If anyone knows how to create a giant snowman to put up on our roof, let me know. We really want to win this year.)
Rediscover Your Family Room. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But don’t forget to stay home. It can be so nice to just relax, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home. Stay in and watch Holiday movies. Bake Christmas cookies one night and listen to your favorite Holiday music. Invite some friends over to see your tree, try a new recipe, or see your handmade Menorah. Best year, wear your Holiday PJ’s while you are doing it all. It’s your house after all.
Ask the Experts. The final ingredient to planning on having more fun this Holiday season is to ask the experts – other families – what traditions they enjoy during the Holidays. I recently started speaking at various Moms groups on “How to Create Family Holiday Traditions” and I love listening to the ideas that they share with me on what their family does to create memories. (I have to admit, I love the silly and funny traditions the best.) So, ask your extended family, neighbors, and friends what they do each year and see if you can find some inspiration. Don’t forget to check out the local websites that list what Holiday activities are going on in your area for events you might want to check out. Your local newspaper or local parenting sites like www.kidwinks.com here in Chicago are perfect for ideas. Or check back tomorrow when we’ll start our series “Stimulus Package for Fun Family Traditions – 10 Ideas to Banish the Bah Humbugs!”
Do you have any Holiday Traditions that involve more than just your family? We’d love to hear about them.
In the third part of our recipe for Creating Family Holiday Traditions, two additional ingredients we suggest for “spicing” up the family fun is Be Creative and Try Something New.
Instead of putting on your Santa Hat, try putting on your creativity/imagination hat and think about ways to amp up your existing Holiday Traditions. If your family has a tradition of cutting down a real tree every year, try wearing Santa Hats or dressing like lumberjacks this year to give the event a little silliness and flair. (Oh yes, I’ve seen Office Space and know that “flair” has a negative connotation but in this case changing up the way you do your traditions can be good.) Every year, ask the kids to come up with a new twist on a favorite tradition and you may be amazed at how fun it can be just brainstorming ideas. If you all bake Holiday cookies together, try a new recipe or one that sounds really wild to be adventurous. If your family runs in a local Turkey Trot or 5K race before Thanksgiving dinner, make T-shirts with a funny saying so you look like a team running together. If you talk about what makes your thankful at the Thanksgiving dinner, this year try bringing something to show everyone instead of just talking.
The other ingredient to creating family Holiday traditions is to Try Something New this year. Be adventurous and try a new activity that you’ve heard or read about. If you love it, do it again year after year. So, if you always go to see the Christmas Carol play, try the Nutcracker Ballet this year. If you have never had a real Christmas tree, try cutting one down this year and see if you like the difference. If your kids are a little older now, try going to Midnight Mass. Invite other people to your Hannukah celebration to teach them about your traditions. Try making your menorah this year instead of using the family favorite. Or, buy a candle making set and have the whole family make candles this year for the Celebration of Light. (I’m not Jewish but I asked my friends about their traditions and looked and online for ideas. I found a really nice article on Hannukah traditions to do with your kids.)
The second ingredient in our recipe for how to create and enjoy more Family Holiday Traditions is to Prepare Now! If there are any tasks that need to be completed to schedule or prepare for the tradition, do them now while it’s not so busy. Send out invitations, buy tickets, call Grandma to get that cookie recipe, check on Holiday Tea Times, or investigate volunteer opportunities with your favorite local charity. If you take care of all of the details now, you won’t be scrambling and making more stress for yourself in December.
So, if you are planning a Holiday party – buy the invitations, invite people now to get on their busy calendars early, plan the menu (you can check out MemorableEntertaining.com for some great Holiday entertaining tips and menus), even do some of the baking now and freeze it for later. If you want to go to the theater for a Holiday event like the Christmas Carol or Nutcracker Ballet, call now and get the tickets.
If you want to check out what Holiday activities are available in your town, like ice sculpture contest or gingerbreadhouse displays, check your local paper, museum sites, or parent-friendly activity sites like www.gocitykids.com or if you are in the Chicago area, check our favorite site www.kidwinks.com.
If you have a tradition of sending out a family newsletter with your Holiday cards – don’t do what I do and wait until the last minute so I end up sending New Year’s cards – get it written and printed now. If your kids are old enough, have them each write their own section of the newsletter to make it a little easier for you.
I spoke at a Newcomer’s Club meeting last night for a terrific group of Mom’s about Creating Family Holiday Traditions and one of the Moms shared that her family goes to see “It’s a Wonderful Life” every year at a local movie theater, for a charity event the theater holds every year. If you are interested in something like that, call your local theaters to see if they are doing any special screenings of some of your favorite holiday movies.
Bottomline, do yourself a favor and get all of the details taken care of now so when the Holiday Season hits in earnest, you’ll be ready to just enjoy and smile. Check back for the next ingredient in our guide on how to create and enjoy more Family Holiday Traditions.
The Holidays are a great opportunity to have fun with your family. However, the season is short and there is a lot to do – gift buying, baking, wrapping, Holiday parties, decorating, and writing and addressing cards, to name a few. Agh! Don’t let the stress of the Holiday Season overwhelm you where you forget to have fun. After all, the Holidays are all about family.
You may already have a few traditions in place. There are so many activities around the Holidays like plays, concerts, and parties to keep your family in the fun. But it’s also nice to just relax, stay in, maybe light a fire, admire your decorations, and have fun in your home. This week we will share some guidelines on how to create some new Family Holiday Traditions. Next week we’ll share some creative ideas to stimulate you to try some new activities this year.
The first ingredient is Book It! Spontaneity is great, but it’s passive. You can’t leave fun to chance. If it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t get done. So, sit down with your family one night at dinner and ask what types of activities they would like to do this Holiday Season. Each person can pick one activity. Or, if your kids are young, Mom and Dad can do the planning. Then pick a date for each and write them down in the master family calendar. Now it is booked so everyone can look forward to their activity. Anticipation makes it great.
We recently found a great site Mom it Forward where they believe that Moms can make a difference and change the world for the better. They have kicked off a pretty cool contest this summer called the Summer of Service (SOS) Challenge. Each week they will post tips on how to make a meaningful difference. Do one of their suggested tips, tell them, and you could win some great prizes. Check out the Challenge here and show your kids how you walk the talk and give back. Even if you don’t participate in the Challenge, we think this is an awesome way to pick up some tips on how to get your kids and your family thinking about giving.
My husband and I talk to the kids about giving back but we always need to do more. We do some things as a family like every year we buy a Christmas gift for a needy child from our YMCA Giving Tree. We also donate money to the World Wildlife Fund every Christmas so the kids can get a cool, endangered stuffed animal. We donate our used toys and clothes to charity. By doing these things consistently, they have become a giving tradition in our family. The kids actually ask about when they are coming up.
Our kids also love one of our Church fundraisers for a local Women’s Shelter. They hand out plastic baby bottles and ask people to fill them with all loose change around the house. Our kids love searching the house for coins to put in the bottle.
Some of the activities that we are involved in offer some great opportunities to give back to the community. With our son’s Cub Scouts troop we have packed care packages for our troops with Operation Yellow Ribbon. Both of our kids take piano lessons and every year their teacher has the kids perform a Halloween concert at a local nursing home. The residents love to see the kids in their costumes playing music. We have helped to clean up the local forest preserve with my daughter’s Adventure Guides group.
If you have a hard time thinking of ways to give back, definitely look to see what your Church or kids groups have planned for the summer. Definitely check out the Mom It Forward challenge. What we love about the Mom It Forward suggestions is that they remind us that we should all be practicing more random acts of kindness at home. It’s important to help strangers, but it is also important and really easy to help those we love.
What do you and your family do to give back to the community. Please share your ideas with us since we are always looking for more.
The last day of school is a major unofficial holiday for my kids – it ranks right up there with Christmas and their birthdays. And who can blame them? Even though we Moms don’t get our summers off, we can still appreciate all the excitement the season has to offer. So take a cue from the little guys and get pumped up!
Turning the last day of school into a celebration is a great way to score major “cool” points with your kids and have some fun together while the thrill of summer is still fresh. Here’s a few suggestions on how to pull it off:
*Make the day special from the get-go. Surprise your kids with an out-of-the-ordinary breakfast that doesn’t come from a box. Chocolate chip pancakes never fail to make the day look a little brighter. Add an ice cold smoothie made with fresh summer fruits, and you’ll send ‘em off to school smiling.
*If you can, take a half day off of work or work from home that day. You and your kids will appreciate it!
*When school lets out, tell the kids to get their walking shoes, rollerblades, or bikes ready and take a trip to the ice cream shop for celebratory sundaes.
*If it’s really nice outside, head to the pool or beach for the first “official” day of summer. Make it an extra-special occasion with some fun new beach towels, like the totally cute Yikes Twins hooded towels (I especially love the black masked Batman towel!).
*Nothing says summer like a picnic, so grab some chips and sandwiches from the neighborhood deli and head to the playground, forest preserve, or zoo for some serious outdoor fun.
*Rainy day? Don’t let it dampen your spirits. Check out the new Night at the Museum or Up movies and tell the kids to invite a friend or two (because summer is all about hanging out with your pals, ya know). Or rent some family flicks to watch at home, and let the kids make their own Boboli pizza in between showings.
Whatever you decide to do, have fun! Does your family have any traditions for celebrating the last day of school or the first day of summer? Share them with us, we’d love to hear about them!
It’s Spring in the Midwest and that means the Farmers Markets are open. Browsing the Farmers Market stalls on a lazy Saturday morning is one of my absolute favorite summer traditions. There is something about locally grown produce that just seems to make everything taste better – fresher, more colorful, healthier. Whether I’m looking for fresh tomatoes and basil to create a caprese salad or fresh fruit for my homemade peach cobbler, I’m sure to find the best quality ingredients at a Farmers Market. But often the best finds are the items you weren’t specifically looking for. An unusual chili, for example, might inspire me to try out a new taco recipe. Or I might come across some yummy looking artisan cheeses that would be perfect for that Mom’s Night Off party I’ve been meaning to organize. (Note to self: Get those invitations out!)
Another reason why I love Farmers Markets is that they’re a fun, relaxing way to spend some quality time with my kids. We have a great Farmers Market in our town that is kid and pet friendly. Each stall has water put out for dogs and many provide samples for the kids. They even provide music! On Saturday mornings, our family has a fun routine where we first walk to the local coffee shop, because to quote Ralph’s World – “M-O-M-M-Y Needs C-O-F-F-E-E.” Then we walk the dog to the Farmers Market where we get fresh ingredients to try out a new recipe we’ve found. We’re together, outside in the sunshine, discovering new foods, promoting local farmers, and exercising. That’s almost an overload of family goodness, but we deal.
The trip becomes an adventure since each week there is usually something new to see. A new artisan bread, homemade pasta sauce, herbs, fresh flowers, produce, and we even have a guy who sells Buffalo Steaks. My kids look forward to this adventure so much (especially my son who loves the Pickle Guy.) So, to get my kids even more involved in our fresh food shopping, we got them each their own Farmers Market Set by Playful Chef.
It was designed by a Mom to encourage children of all ages to become more involved in their food decisions, and it includes everything you need to buy, clean, prepare, and eat your Farmers Market produce with your family. The included booklet shows kids where our food comes from on a beautifully illustrated map of North America. It even shows kids how to clean fresh produce.
What the kids like the most though, is that they get their own reusable shopping bag to carry home the items that they pick out. That way my son can keep his pickle juice in his bag and not mine. Somehow they eat their vegetables a little more enthusiastically when they picked them out themselves.
Have an adventure this weekend and take your kids to the local Farmers Market. Come back and tell us what they liked the best. Happy Shopping!
We were cruising through some Mom blog sites and found this fun posting on Creating Your Own Family Holiday. The ladies over at RookieMoms.com have challenged and inspired us to make up some special days that mean something to our family.
Think about it. Creating your own Holiday! How fun is that!?! And, what a great opportunity to use your imagination and creativity. Here’s our take on the idea – Why not let each person in the family come up with an idea and you can vote on it. Or, put the ideas in a hat each January 1st and draw one idea to be celebrated that year. If you love celebrations and silliness, why not let each person in the family get their own Holiday?
If all of your family birthdays seem to come at the same time of year, this is a perfect opportunity to spread out your family celebrations. Here are some of my ideas for a family Holiday:
1. Enchanted Fairy or Troll Day. On the first really nice day in Spring, declare it Fairy or Troll day. Then the whole family can spend the day outside building a fairy or troll house so that the little creatures have a place to stay at your house all summer. Your kids will love building the houses out of sticks, leaves, and any other creative materials. You can put out Fairy food for them (I heard they love pink sprinkles) or Troll food (black licorice ropes and reeses peanut butter cups.) Don’t ask me why they eat that. I asked my kids and that’s what they said they eat. Everyone in the family can write a letter to the creatures asking for good luck for the season. Then before bed, read your favorite fairy or troll books.
2. Family Movie Festival. In the fall on a yucky Saturday or Sunday, pick a day for a family movie festival. Everyone in the family get to pick their favorite movie to watch. Lounge the day away in your pajamas and watch these classic movies with plenty of snacks. End the day by watching some of your favorite home movies or ask Grandma and Grandpa to come over with movies of you when you were a kid. The kids will love it!
3. Curl Up With a Good Book Day. I love to read and there is nothing greater than finding a good book that you can’t put down. However, I always feel guilty when I sit down and just read during the middle of the day. I always feel like I should be doing something else. So, I would love a day where everyone gets a book, finds a comfy nook, and spends the day reading. We love to encourage our kids to read so this would help them discover the joy of reading. At the end of the day we can each talk about what we read.
4. Eat the Salsa in the Refrigerator Day. OK, this one is hardly worthy of a Holiday but I was going through the fridge last week and found 5 open jars of salsa in the fridge. How does this happen? Wouldn’t it be great if one day we just ate salsa all day and FREED UP SPACE IN THE FRIDGE? Sigh. A Mom can dream can’t she?
What are some of your ideas for a Holiday? I hope they involve Chocolate. We’d love to hear them so please share!
Family traditions are so important and Easter is a great time of year to celebrate and have fun with loved ones. But Easter can mean more than just a ham dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt. Here are 5 ideas to start a fun, family Easter tradition this year.
1. Color Easter Eggs – Well, duh! This is easy right, we all know you color Easter eggs at this time of year. But, why not add to the Easter Egg coloring experience? Every year, color the eggs in a different way. Family Fun magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and Celebrations.com provide you with ideas on how to decorate Easter Eggs. Start a tradition where every year you take turns deciding how you are going to decorate the eggs that year – stickers, decopage, tie dye, googly eyes, themes, etc. Or, start a tradition where you take some of the decorated eggs to a nearby nursing home. They would love to see your artwork. Another idea is to paint wooden eggs. Every year, everyone in the family gets to decorate one wooden egg. Put their name and the date on the bottom, save them and you have some artwork to look back on.
2. Hunting for Practical Jokes. Funny-up the Easter Egg Hunt by putting weird items in the plastic eggs. Our family has put in everything from grass, dog food, candy wrappers, dirt, shaving cream, and lego guys in the eggs. The kids look forward to opening the eggs and finding weird stuff in them. Lots of giggles.
3. Feed the Bunny. You leave cookies and milk for Santa, right? Well, what about the Bunny? He has to travel all night and he has to hop it! He doesn’t get a cool sleigh ride. I’m sure he’s hungry. Leave out a plate of carrots and a bowl of water for the Easter Bunny. (Maybe leave a can of Red Bull. I think he’s going to need the extra energy.) It’s up to your kids if they also want to leave some “white dip.” This forces Mom and Dad to eat a healthy snack before dinner, as well. Take it a step further and have the kids create a special plate and bowl just for the Easter Bunny.
4. Hunting for Fun. Why do the kids get all the fun on Easter Day at the Easter Egg Hunt? My husband has a huge family and every Easter the adults have fun hiding the eggs for the kids. The eggs get hid in some weird places and you get points for hiding the egg that doesn’t get found until Labor Day. Bonus points if you find out the egg was run over with the lawn mower. One year when the kids were done hunting and the adults were standing around wondering what to do next, we decided to have an adult hunt. One year we hid beer cans (soda would work, too). Another year, it was twinkies. We have hid pieces of paper with jokes on them and it’s pretty fun to read them all aloud later. Be creative, but have fun by having a second Easter Hunt.
5. Try Something New. Traditions are all about doing the same thing so you can look forward to the event, right? Well, make a tradition of doing something different for Easter. In our family, Easter means Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, Deviled Eggs, and some kind of Cream Pie. However, why not make it a tradition to try a different meal combination every year or a different recipe for ham, cheesey potatoes, etc? Cook an Easter meal from another country each year. Or, if you are like me, you clip these great recipes out of the food magazines only to store them somewhere and never use them. Use this family gathering as an excuse to try a new ham recipe or do the potatoes a little different. Just wait for the comments. “Ooh, she used apricot jelly on the ham this year.” “Goat cheese in the potatoes? Brilliant!” Here’s another tradition – invite non-family members to Easter dinner. If you have a small family or find yourself not traveling on Easter, start a tradition of inviting non-family to the family dinner. We have plenty of friends who celebrate Easter at home by themselves. Why not invite them over? You’re going to cook anyway.
We hope these ideas have spurred you on to start a new Family Tradition this year. Leave a comment and tell us your Easter Family Traditions.
Family traditions are so important, especially around the Holidays. Traditions help to bring the Holiday season alive for our family. They help us laugh and smile when things get a little hectic. So, let me share a cool product with you that will help you create a Family Holiday Tradition. We discovered the Elf on the Shelf Book a few years ago and it is a huge hit at our house.
If you’ve never heard of Elf on the Shelf, let me share. With the kit, you get a retro-designed Elf doll and a book. The Elf has a job to do, as the book explains. He sits in your house during the day and then at night, he flies back to Santa to report on who has been naughty and who has been nice. (Parents, that includes you too.) A spy in the house! Why would kids like that? But, here’s the fun part. When the Elf comes back in the morning, he sits in a different part of the house. It is the ultimate hide and seek game. Our kids wake up every morning and run around the house trying to be the first to find the Elf.
To help you make this into a tradition, your family will adopt and name this special Elf. Ours is named Jack. (I wanted Cornelius but the kids overruled me.) The book includes a page where you can write in the Elf’s name and date he was adopted into your family so it becomes a family keepsake. We love this particular Elf because it reminds my husband and I of the ones our Grandmothers used to have in their houses. The Elf has a bendable body so that he can sit around the house in all kinds of cool places. Even if your kids no longer believe in Santa, they will still love the hide and seek game. Your kids can even take turns hiding the Elf to see who is the master hider in the house.
A word of warning to parents. If you forget to move the Elf one night, you had better come up with a pretty good reason why he is still in the same spot. The first time you forget to move him you can always claim that he was trying to be tricky and fool the kids by not moving. After that, you had better be creative. I have to write myself a sticky note to remember to move the Elf at night because last year I forgot two nights in a row. My daughter was distraut! She thought that the Elf had lost his magic and how was Santa going to know she was good. Oh, the drama! My bad, bad, bad! So, I had my daughter write a letter to Santa asking him to give Jack his magic back. We went to the post office and “mailed” it. It worked, and Christmas was saved. Whew! (That should be a Christmas TV special.)
You can really have fun with your Elf. We put ours out the morning after Thanksgiving, even though the kids start asking for him in August. You can have him create some mischief around the house – move presents, decorations, etc. Or we put crumbs around him one night so that it looks like he ate some Christmas cookies. Put some fake snow on him in the morning to show how he rushed home from the North Pole.
If you have an Elf on the Shelf, I’d love to hear what your family named him. Tell us also what excuses you’ve used it he forgot to move and what else you do to have fun with the Elf.
Day of the Dead is one of my favorite Holidays. Huh? How did a suburban Chicagoland girl like me hear about Day of the Dead? Well, I lived in Mexico City for a number of years. For me, Day of the Dead is a fun day where you remember your loved ones who have died, and you share stories about the Chocolate Cake Moments you had together. I wanted to share this love with my kids so I went on a search to find ways to teach my kids about the Holiday. I always think it’s fun to learn about another culture’s traditions. Here are some resources that I have used to teach my kids and I hope they help you too.
If you live in the Chicagoland area or are going to visit anytime from Sept. 26 – Dec. 14th, plan a trip to the National Museum of Mexican Art. They have a really nice Day of the Dead exhibit. Artists from all over the US and Mexico come to the museum to build elaborate ofrendas or altars in the museum and display Day of the Dead themed artwork. They have artists on hand making sugar skulls that can be personalized with your kid’s name. Best yet, the museum store has all of the decorations you need to build an altar at home, books for kids on Day of the Dead, and the traditional papel picado, or tissue paper flag, decorations. Visit their website to plan your trip. My kids really enjoy this exhibit.
There are some really good books written for kids that explain Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead by Tony Johnston and Jeanette Winter is a good one. Felipa and the Day of the Dead by Birte Muller is another one of our favorites. Finally, a book that doesn’t talk directly about Day of the Dead but is a great kids counting story that features Day of the Dead inspired art, is Just A Minute by Yuyi Morales. Read my review.
There are some nice websites that offer coloring pages of the Calaveras (skeletons), sugar skull kits, and instructions on how to make an altar in your home.
I think the Day of the Dead Holiday is a great Holiday to share with kids. What? Why would I want to teach my kids about death and skeletons? November 1st, Day of the Dead, is a great opportunity to talk about death in a positive way about how our loved ones who may be gone but are still with us in spirit. As a family, we use the day to share the Chocolate Cake Moments that we had with someone special who we miss. And, of course, decorate with fabulous bright colors, candy skulls, and have a party where you eat, eat, eat. Let’s not forget that. But let me explain why I love the Day of the Dead Holiday.
I spent part of my childhood in Mexico City. My father worked for Motorola and we lived in Mexico for four years while he was building a factory for the company. (I wish I could offer my kids the opportunity to live overseas for awhile, but that’s another subject.) So, I went to middle and high school in Mexico City at the American School. Not only did I get to learn Spanish fluently but I really enjoyed some of the cultural traditions. During my first October in Mexico City, I got to see a transformation in the city. All of sudden every little store and street vendor had candy skulls out, which I thought were cool. The paper stores started displaying the colorful papel picado – or cut out tissue paper “flags” that show elaborately dressed skeletons enjoying various daily scenes of life. The fresh flower stalls suddenly had more yellow marigolds in stock and elaborate floral arrangements on display. Stores had little Day of the Dead shrines or altars set up to show you how to build your own. The shrines are just a physical way to put out things that remind you of your loved one. For us, it gets the family talking about how Grandpa loved this or that.
So, I loved all of the color and pageantry and funny skeleton art, but when I saw what people did on Day of the Dead, I came to appreciate what the day is about. On November 1st, Day of the Dead, people would either head to the cemeteries or have a party in their homes that was all about celebrating their dead loved ones. Sounds odd, right? But here’s the thing. The Mexican culture embraces death as just another aspect of life. It is not to be feared. And when you are gone, you are not truly gone. Here in the US, we tend to silently mourn for our dead loved ones. Once the funeral is over, the grieving and remembrance becomes a private affair. On Day of the Dead in Mexico, you throw one heck of a party for your loved ones. You serve their favorite food, maybe play their favorite music. Your Day of the Dead shrine has pictures of your loved ones, you leave out some of their favorite food, or other objects that represent what they loved or meant to you in life. It is a way to remember and celebrate their life. It is thought that the spirits of your dead loved ones come and share in this party. Whether you believe that or not, Day of the Dead is a great way to remember the Chocolate Cake Moments you had with someone special who is gone. I want someone to throw me a party when I am gone.
Does your family celebrate Day of the Dead? Tell me how.
