Christmas Break Stay-cation Ideas
Everywhere around me I see families planning big trips over Christmas break. Trips to Florida and Disney World or California and Disney Land. Cruises to tropical locations. Even trips abroad.
But Christmas break can be fun and enjoyable right in your own town. And won’t make you take out another loan!
Indoor Activities
- Make gingerbread houses – Check out these ideas from Wilton!
- Bake some cookies – Here are 40 different kinds!
- Watch Christmas movies – Disney Christmas options, Netflix Christmas movies, Over 50 Christmas movies
- Read a Christmas story out loud as a family – Here’s an awesome list!
- Make ‘Thank You’ cards for the gifts you received
- Create Christmas art projects – Check out these 25 ideas!
- Play some board games – Need some new ideas? Here are 40 options!
- Check out the latest movies in theaters – The Last Jedi comes out December 15th!
- Go to your local museums
- Find a local restaurant you’ve never gone to
- Check out how other cultures celebrate Christmas – Here are 40+ free resources
Outdoor Activities – snow included
- Build a snowman – these ideas are awesome!
- Create a snow fort
- Go sleighriding
- Go skiing/snowboarding
- Have a snowball fight
- Go snowshoeing
- Go iceskating
Outdoor Activities – no snow necessary
- Tour the Christmas lights around town and rank them
- Go Christmas Caroling – Here’s a free Christmas Songbook
- Take a nature walk
- Go on a horse and buggy or sleigh ride
- Enjoy hot chocolate and a bonfire
Volunteering/Hospitality
- Find a local soup kitchen to volunteer
- Make compassion kits for the homeless – Here’s a great example!
- Volunteer with Meals on Wheels – https://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/
- Make Christmas cards for your local nursing home
- Have your neighbors over for a dessert/pie swap
- Donate presents to the Children’s wing of your local hospital
- Ring the bell for Salvation Army
What activities are you and your family doing this Christmas break?
God bless!
Melissa
I love all this options!! I especially love your ideas for giving back! I’ve always wanted the kids and I to make Christmas cards for a nursing home! I think next year will be a great year to start! Speaking of other cultures, I would love to do fireworks on Christmas… Not sure how the neighbors would feel about this! 🙂
I want to gather together the compassion kits to have in our vehicles so that we have them handy anytime we are around and the need arises. My husband just heard an idea of calling local nursing homes to ask if there are any residences who don’t get presents and then have them ask what that person would like. Usually it’s just something small and personal. I’ve thought about fireworks for New Year’s Eve! Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts! God bless!
Great ideas! My husband and I are traveling to Maryland to be with my family, and we’ll be touring the new Museum of the Bible. I can’t wait!
Oh! I would love to tour the Museum of the Bible. It’s definitely a wish-list vacation for a few years from now. God bless your travels and family!
We have been going down our list today and have gotten our Christmas break started too!
Fun! It can be such a joyous time of year when the focus is on family and all of the blessing we are given! God bless!
We have done a lot of these fun activities over the years. We particularly love to go sledding and look at Christmas lights.
I would enjoy letting the “winner” of my favorite Christmas lights know their house has delighted and blessed us. I hope you get to enjoy sledding again this year. God bless!
Thank you for these options! This list will come in handy in the next few weeks!
I’m excited to get to do them, too! Thank you for stopping. God bless!
I think kids might enjoy stay-cations more than we can imagine. Just being together as a family unit is wonderful. Add all these ideas on the top: perfect! Thanks for sharing. Blessings to you and yours!
I completely agree! When I look back I remember the times together at home better than the vacation and times away. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
These are such great ideas! We have 3 1/2 weeks off for Christmas break, which is a LONG TIME and I need ideas to keep the kids busy or we’ll all go nuts! Thank you so much!
Wow! That is a long break! That’s enough time to get every thing done from the list! Enjoy the time together. Thank you for stopping by and commenting. God bless!
I love the thank you cards idea for those who give our family gifts. I will definitely be doing that! Stopping by from Grace and Truth Link, and I pinned this post to share with our Living Our Priorities community
My plan is to add the thank you cards to the family tradition this year, too. Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!
Such great ideas!! I definitely want to start baking with my kiddies..win win all around! ☺️
It can be a lot of fun as long as you keep in mind that they are likely not going to be able to do the baking as well as you. It’s okay if the decorating is a bit mess or heavy on the sprinkles! Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
Such great ideas! I always love driving around and looking at people’s lights and also stopping at Starbucks to drink a latte. 🙂
My husband loves playing board games so we usually do that too. 🙂
One thing I have always wanted to do is give the “winner” of the best Christmas lights a small gift as a token of our appreciation and delight in their efforts! Thank you for stopping by! God bless!
I love this post and have shared this link on PainPals reg feature Monday Magic – this week Inspiring Christmas Blogs for You. Claire x
Thank you so much Claire! I hope you have a Merry Christmas! God bless!
We’re lovers of travel around here, but we have never traveled over the Christmas break. I love just staying home and enjoying the time together! Thanks for all the wonderful ideas to make this time more meaningful!
I would love to get to travel more often! I’m glad the post was positive and I hope you get to add a few more ideas into your time together. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
A fun list! I find that my Christmas break goes so much better when I have a plan for the day. The only thing I know that my four kids want to do for sure is have a cookie baking war. I’ll give them dough and they can choose the mix-ins. Then they will judge each other’s cookies. We did this with cupcakes during the summer break.
Rachel that sounds awesome! I’ll have to remember that for when my children are a little older. My kids do better when we have a couple planned items for each day along with some downtime. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your wonderful idea! God bless!
These are wonderful ideas! Christmas break is such a nice change from the day-to-day of school life. . . but the days at home can get awfully long! Thank you for these thoughtful ideas of ways to have fun and to give to others.
Thank you so much for joining the Grace at Home party at Imparting Grace. I’m featuring you this week!
Thank you so much Richella! The days can get long if there isn’t at least one planned activity to keep them engaged and preoccupied. Thank you for stopping by and for the feature! God bless!