By Jon Mumford

Outdoor Activities

Aside from the obvious hiking, gardening, water fights, snowball fights, and various sports that you can play together as a family, there are also some more unusual activities for the outdoors. Try learning something about astronomy. Get a telescope and sit on your roof (if possible) and watch the stars with your kids. There are lots of great winter outdoor activities if live in an area with lots of snowskiing, sledding, and making a giant snow fort or other “snow creations.” These are all great ideas on how to get your child off the couch and get some exercise as a family.

Indoor Activities

Have a family “cultural night” where each person dresses up as someone from another culture that they are interested. Prepare food for each ethnicity and know some facts about each. This will be educational and fun.

1. Try “Skittle bowling.” Take the family bowling and bring a large bag of Skittles. For every turn, someone has to pick a Skittle out of the bag. Each color will represent something. For example, red could mean that you have to bowl left-handed. Yellow could mean that you have to bowl backwards.
2. Have some family fun by having a karaoke night or stand-up comedy night. You could even turn it into an impromptu talent show, if your child can do something unusual like juggling or head stands.

Holiday Activities

Holidays are important occasions that can quickly turn into nightmares without some planned activities. Children thrive on structure and routine and holidays tend to disrupt that. Here are some ways to have family fun in spite of the chaos.

1. Make Christmas gift baskets for people in need. You can contact your local Social Services agency to get a list of people in your area that are elderly, disabled, or needy. This is great way to teach your children about giving back.
2. Make a gingerbread house or some ornaments for your Christmas tree together as a family.
3. Turn your backyard into a winter wonderland with candle luminaries.
4. Transform your basement or garage into Santa’s workshop. Set an afternoon aside to help your children gather up all their old toys and fix them up to give to needy children.

Now, we know that all of these will not work for EVERYBODY, but find the ideas that work for you. The idea behind having fun as a family is to be a team. Family fun doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, just memorable.

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