Two years into the pandemic, safety and health protocols have limited people’s everyday activities. With the emerging variants, one can never know when a city or a country needs to lockdown again.
Because of these erratic changes, traveling is yet to be a distant activity, and families are yet again forced to stay at home for the holidays. However, a good thing that seemed to happen despite the pandemic was that parents, kids, and other household members got to spend more time at home and enjoy the company of each other.
What more timely opportunity could there be than to take advantage of being at home with your family this holiday? Especially with children, it would be a chance to do some activities to strengthen bonds with their parents, siblings, and other family members. Make the yuletide season more meaningful with these indoor fun activities you can do with your kids at home:
1. Make your Own Creative Family Schedule Planner
Make chore assignments engaging and fun by making your schedule board with the kids. Instead of the plain old whiteboard or corkboard where you designate the tasks of each family member throughout the day, why not gather some leftover materials from your kids’ art class such as pencil, ruler, cardboard, and stickers?
You can make a table with the days of the week and the hours you want to allow for chores, and have stickers that represent each member of the family, e.g., heart for Mommy, bear for the eldest sibling, rainbow for the youngest child, and you can even include your pets on the board!
This way, not only will the board be visually stimulating for your children to check now and then, but it also keeps them engaged in their designated work and be excited to start the next chore so that they can add their stickers to the chart. Make the colors crazy, and it doesn’t matter if the kids color out of the lines! It’s the family’s special board anyway!
You can even have a magnetic board and make it more artsy by adding magnetic characters and cards. For mess-free toys that your kids can stick up your activity board, you can check myhappyhelpers.com.au. They offer a wide range of interactive toys and materials to bring the natural artist out of your children.
2. Organize a Home Theatre Play with the Kids
Get your young ones started early with the magic of Broadway by making your show at home – even right in your living room! If you have watched Greta Erwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women, you can take tips from the March sisters by making your production.
You can have your children participate by first coming up with a good story. It could be about their imaginary friends or a real-life adaptation of their favorite Disney cartoon. You can even have extra quality time by sewing your costumes together. Who knows, the next great playwright is just right in your own home!
3. Write Your Own Family Recipe Book
Perhaps another great hobby that people got into during the pandemic was rediscovering their love for cooking. Everyone can now be a great chef, even just by watching videos on the internet or searching for recipes online.
However, you can take this new hobby as a family bonding time opportunity by writing your family recipe book, which you can also pass to your future generations. You can jot down Grandma’s secret apple pie recipe or start from scratch by experimenting with different ice cream flavors with your children.
This lovingly curated book could be a valuable heirloom that your future descendants can look through and know more about your family history. Not only that, but it will also serve as a time machine that will transport you back to the simpler times when you make delicious meals in the kitchen with your loved ones.
4. Go Camping Right in Your Backyard
Technically, this doesn’t count as an indoor activity, but it still is a great way to spend quality time with the youngsters right at home. Since protocols limit families’ outdoor activities, why not take camping right into your backyard?
You can take your tent and set it up during the evening and have a bonfire to go along with it. The kids can roast smores and hotdogs over the fire while Dad can whip out his guitar and have a sing-along with the whole family. You can even have a little spook-fest by scaring your little kids with stories you pass around in summer camp during your younger days.
5. Join a New Class with the Whole Family
You can transform being stuck at home from a dreadful holiday into an exciting one by learning a new skill with the whole family involved. There are a lot of free classes offered online for those who are staying at home, and they are a great way to pass off idle time while learning new things.
One example is beginner-friendly yoga offered by Yoga with Adrienne. This channel provides videos running for as short as 5 minutes or full-length ones at one hour or more if you want a little challenge in your session. She even offers yoga for kids, which even adults can enjoy on their own.
Takeaway
Although this pandemic is a difficult time, you can take this chance to rekindle your family’s bond and make your time together more memorable. Your children will only be young once, and may this time be built with memories that they can cherish even until they grow old.
