Family Fun Ideas

Last night, we concluded our parenting discussion group with a time of sharing family fun ideas. Here is a list of what we came up with in just 15 minutes with seven families represented:

1. Go to a local park on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas Eve. Spend the time together as a family with a time for quiet, a game of hide-and-seek, or perhaps a scavenger hunt. (No one else is likely to be at the park on either of these days.)
2. Bi-monthly family movie night. Spend one night every other night watching family home movies or slide shows.
3. Bi-monthly game night.
4. Family devotional activity night – do a craft, play or something else creative that deals with a story from the Bible. For example, act out the nativity or build an ark out of popsicle sticks.
5. Ask the kids what they want to do.
6. Test run a new family tradition. If it sticks, it becomes tradition. If it doesn’t, oh well.
7. Christmas ornaments. Give an ornament to your kids each year that expresses a memory or milestone from the year past. Each year have your child go through the story of each year’s ornament as they hang them up. (My kids can’t wait to hear my stories from all my ornaments.) 8. Plan a family vacation to a place where you don’t have to move the car. (Our family went to Washington, DC this summer, and we didn’t move the car until we left.)
9. When visiting the same city, go to a different ethnic restaurant every time you go out with your family.
10. Make candy (or bake goods) with your whole family (including extended family if possible).
11. Have Swedish (or other ancestory) food during the holidays.
12. Have an annual New Year’s Eve sleepover at a friends house.
13. Plan an annual family camping trip with other families.
14. Go to Knobels.
15. Go on a family bike picnic. Stop have way to have your picnic.
16. Unpack the family Christmas village together.
17. Go garage sale hopping together as a family. See who can get the best bargain or the best treasure.
18. Go Christmas caroling in your neighborhood. End the evening with hot cider and cookies at someone’s home.
19. Nativity scene add-on. Start with a stable. Each year add a new figure to the nativity set.
20. Have a best/worst dinner. Every person has to share the best part and the worst part about their days.
21. Have a regular family fun night. Rotate who gets to plan each night.
22. Go to Cape May, NJ for vacation.
23. Go to Lake George, NY for vacation.
24. With your nativity scene, play hide the baby Jesus.
25. Birthday day off. Whenever someone in the family is celebrating a birthday, the whole family takes the day off from work and school to go do something fun together.
26. Host an annual Easter family brunch and invite friends who don’t have family around.

Wow, that’s a lot of ideas. Maybe you have more ideas to add to this great list. Feel free to contribute by posting a comment.

Until the next post, here’s an idea, have fun with your family!