Ideas to make a potentially dull Christmas fun!

[Cupboarddoor]

I am hoping for some advice for making Christmas day fun and exciting for me, DH & 3 DCs (7, 5 & 2).

The short-ish version of the story is that last Christmas was a nightmare; DH was stuck in the States (after being there for 6 weeks) due to the heavy snow and got back late on Christmas Eve. We hosted my family and his family (who I don't particularly get on with) on Christmas day, they all disappeared on the 27th and then DH and I split up...

...since then, water under the bridge, DH got back together, and wanting to make this Christmas different and not at all the same as last year.

This year, the plan was for us to spend Christmas with my parents & brother & sister in law. Given last year's happenings I would prefer to be anywhere other than my house so I asked my brother if he would be happy to have us over but he's said his house is too small for us all & the oven is a bit dodgy, so my lovely parents have offered for us all to go to theirs. They are lovely, lovely people but can be, well, quite boring.

I am worried that the day at my parents might be dull, and end up with us sitting on the sofas staring at each other. Given the happenings of last year I want to inject some fun into proceedings and wondered if anyone had any ideas of how I might do this.

TIA

Make one of your presents something that you can all do together. How about colouring paper bags to make puppets and then putting on a puppet show for your parents? Even your 2 year old will enjoy the colouring part. We always go for a walk after dinner so take warm clothes and head to the park for an hour or so. Good luck!

What would you do at your place that would be less dull?

Surely you can just do the same at your parents house, as the same people will be there, just in a different house.

Your children will amuse themselves and the grandparents - it's Christmas after all . That leaves you two and your brother/SIL to sort youselves (and the cooking?) out.

an extra gift-- naff/bad taste but still useful present for each of you. pound shops are the best place for these!!

we did this one year, under £3 per gift, deffo no more than a fiver.

it was hysterical.!! quilted tissue box, awful ornament. maybe thats just our sense of humour tho!!

For this very reason, I always do a Christmas pass the parcel, which includes forfeits in each layer. It is very funny watching DH's nan pretending to be Tom Jones.

And my DS1 always does a Christmas raffle. We buy very cheap presents and then he gives out raffle tickets then does the big draw. He loves it!

Great ideas here, I'm keeping an eye too. We always go for a good walk, but pass the parcel and a raffle would go down brilliantly here. Love the idea of a puppet show for when the kids are bigger. Hope you have a great day OP!

Fab ideas, thanks very much all. I think we've got into a bit of a rut with what we do and when on the day...

Particularly loving the pass the parcel and hideous extra gifts ideas and my DDs would absolutely creating a puppet show. And must buy a toy or game we'll all enjoy playing together.

Looking forward to a brilliant day, thanks

Two years ago I bought an Origami style kit from Past Times. It was a Christmas tree that you had to construct.

It took six of us about an hour (we might have been drinking) and it looked lovely.

Love the pass the parcel idea, definitely going to do that with a new game wrapped up in it as the main present. :)

Also when we were kids we used to be given the end of a piece of thread at some point in the afternoon and have to follow it (winding round a piece of card as we went) completely round the house to a last present at the end of it - normally a chocolate santa - great fun!

Walk to the pub. You only need to stay for one or two. Kids can take their toys/bikes/prams etc. Pubs that are open always have a fabulous friendly family atmosphere on christmas day (check in advance). Puts everyone in a good mood, stops the grandparents nodding off and when you are get back everyone is hungry and kids have burnt off some excess energy. We started doing this three years ago and it really helps with boring quiet christmas days.

We have a 'guess what' competition with some family friends - exchanged on Xmas eve, answers at new years eve party. They are supposed to be kitchen things - cooking paraphernalia but setimes it's a bit of a stretch. And usually not expensive. think Lakeland weird and wonderful gadgets before they've got into the Lakeland catalogue.

Over the years there have been gems such as unusual nut crackers, a thing for making hard boiled eggs into cubes, pineapple voters long before they turned up everywhere, a turkey stitcher and a hot chocolate frother.

But it's great fun - my mum and the other mum use some of them but others are kept in 'The Collection' and they get used as an instant party game or to confuse others. Reckon it's been going on for well over 30 years; in all that time I don't think there's ever been a time when we both bought the same thing.

I have bought small boxes of trivia questions from e bay. We have Tots tv (so even the 4 year old can join in), Food, music, sport so far. We will use them in between courses at dinner.
We do the pass the parcel and I am pinching the raffle idea as well

Loving the pass the parcel idea! Am stealing that! But I need more ideas of things to wrap and what the final present could be

Ikea usually sell kits for gingerbread house very cheaply - last year they were less than a couple of quid each. They don't have the icing ot sweets in - just the gingerbread bits for the house but it makes it much cheaper than most of the kits around even when you buy your own icing and sweets.

You could buy two or three and an assortment of things to decorate it with. Then let each of the kids have one each to decorate or have adults vs kids or mixed adult and child teams and have a gingerbread house decorating competition.

If you do it after Xmas lunch hopefully everybody will be too full to want to eat too many sweets! But it can be lots of fun and as exciting or gentle as you want it to be plus you end up with gingerbread to eat at!