Did you know that kids get bored over Christmas break? Shocking, I know. A little boredom isn’t bad, but let’s get you Christmas break ready so that you don’t have to listen to kids complain that there isn’t anything to do, even though they just got new toys to play with. Here are 10 simple and fun family activities you can do during this break.

Make a Game Tournament

Did you get a new game (or even a bunch of games) for Christmas? Pick your family’s favorite game and make it into a tournament. You can play one round a night and total the scores up at the end of break or you can play eight rounds in one night and start a new game the next day. 

Camp Out in your Living Room

This can be as low key or extravagant as you want! You can get fairy lights and a tent out and set up or you can bring the mattresses to the living room and everyone watches your favorite family movie. Every single time we have done this the kids will talk about it for years and how fun it was. You can either take a tent and set it up in the house or build a fun fort you can sleep in. 

Make a Hot Chocolate Bar

This is such a fun activity that you can put together with the kids before Christmas, but why just do it then? Make a hot chocolate bar after Christmas. Some things that you might want to include are marshmallows, whipped cream, or candy canes and then when anyone wants a sweet treat, the station is already put together. These are always fun to put together while the kids are outside playing in the snow, when they come in and have a variety of toppings and options for them to put together and warm up with. 

Build Gingerbread Houses (or cookies)

If you didn’t get a chance to make gingerbread houses this month, now is the perfect time to make one! A lot of the time you can find them on sale now and the activity is just as fun and maybe even more fun since you didn’t spend as much on them. The kids can use the Christmas candy you already have and you can make your own gingerbread, you can use graham crackers, or you might even get lucky and find a kit on sale depending on your local grocery store. 

Are gingerbread houses not your thing? Try these delicious gingerSNAP cookies that are always a hit! Every time we serve these up, people always come back wanting more and especially wanting the recipe. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

Start a Book Club

This can mean you are all reading the same book on your own time and discussing each chapter when everyone finishes it. Or you can read a book out loud to your kids so everyone is at the same place at the same time. I am so grateful with how much our kids have been loving to read lately. Reading was never a favorite thing for me, but I am not going to put my dislike for reading on them. 

Have a Spa Day

You get a facial and you get a facial and you get a facial! Get your best lotion, finger nail polish, whatever you want to do at your spa and get everyone involved. You can set up a foot massage station, a facial station, a nail painting station and have everyone take turns participating in and helping in the “spa”. Our girls really love this, but our boys love it too. Everyone loves a facial and the thing that makes this great too is they are learning skin care. I don’t know about you, but proper skincare wasn’t taught when I was little. 

Have a Movie Marathon

Choose a movie series you want to watch, like Harry Potter, and see how many movies you can make it through over the break. This is an obvious one because your kids are probably constantly watching tv over the break, but when you have a movie marathon that you can all watch together and talk about your favorite parts. Do you have a movie series you watched as a child and want to watch it with your kids? This is the time to do it! We just did this with the Back to the Future movies and the kids loved them!

Have a Read-a-Thon

Choose a day that everyone gets a book and just reads. See if you can finish the books. You can include prizes too for who read the longest, who read the most pages, or who fell asleep first. One of my favorite parts of a read-a-thon is getting collection of snacks and treats to much on while you are reading. Plus, make some cozy little reading nooks that are in places out of the ordinary. Have fun with this and make it memorable!

Have the Kids Make and Serve Dinner

Put the kids in charge of dinner and serve the dinner like a restaurant. It turns into a mini date night, and the kids love it! You might have to be the clean up crew though, fair warning. Depends on your kids age, you can clearly help them with it, but let them pick what the meal is going to be. There is something amazing about spending this quality time with your kids teaching them to cook and what goes into make a meal. 

Parenting tip: one of our kids favorite meals they were in charge of was a spaghetti dinner, but we just served it all right on the table (with a plastic table cloth) and clean up was so easy.

Do One on One Dates with the Kids

One on one dates with our kids are highly anticipated and this can be super simple over break. You can lay out a schedule for 30 minutes of time with each kid, they can choose which parent they want to have on their date, and you can watch a show, play a game, color or do something else they want to do. This could even be done after the other kids go to bed so you don’t have to figure out what to do with the other kids and both parents could be on the date! While sometimes we get overwhelmed with all the time over the break, using that time to spend some one on one time with each kid. They will remember it forever!