Christmas bucket list of things to do, places to go, with children

[Twinklz]

What’s in your bucket list of things to do and places to go with your children over Christmas?

To see the Grinch next Sat and ice skating Christmas Eve.

Panto.
Seen the Grinch already
Done santa
Planning a Christmas drive to see the lights

Would of loved to see winterwonderland but not really practical.

Panto
Ice skating (tower of London)
Harry Potter experience with everything decorated to match the season.
Try to do a puzzles every Christmas holiday
Might try going to the cinema a few times. It’s a 25 min walk there and back, so good exercise and reward for going.

sounds good :)

Harry Potter studios but it’s sold out 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.

Making a gingerbread house.
Making Christmas cookies.
Making paper chains.
Decorating the tree.
Letter to Father Christmas.
Going to the local garden centre to look at the vast display of decorations. Usually a treasure hunt for little ones there too.

Cinema booked for next week
Bowling booked for just before new year
Making cookies on xmas eve
Waiting for the Christmas Toucan box to arrive for crafts. (Free from O2 priorities )
A drive to see all the lights locally
Our local santa charity drive by is next week

We saw Father Christmas yesterday

DC visit the Panto with school

I'm hoping that's enough, I expect it will be as they're looking forward to hot chocolate and movies once they've broken up from school and they're presents will keep them entertained after.

We have to budget carefully for Christmas but I wish we could do more. We have woodland outside our house so lots of bike rides and walks plus the board games are already downstairs.

Making christmas cookies
Seeing santa (tomorrow night)
A drive to see all the x mas lights
X mas eve we are going for lunch and then treating them to one of those ice cream diner places
Cant wait!

Seeing Father Christmas
Christingle service
Panto
Making Christmas decorations
Baking
Getting together with extended family

Anyone else?

@imip @SixToEightInchesOfSnow we did the Harry Potter studios evening festive tour last year it was amazing, worth every penny and a complete surprise for the DC, I was the best mum ever!! We booked it in September though!

So far we have done Beaulieu lights, panto, Beamish Christmas (we travel a lot as we have family all over the Uk :-)), Christmas party at our local theme park, santa at another local theme park and we ve seen Nativity 4 and Wreckit Ralph 2 at the cinema. We ve done lots of baking too!!

Still to come we have a trip to a country park to see Santa Paws (with a friend and her dog) and another Santa visit at another of our favourite places this weekend. The kids finish school on Thursday and we are going ice skating and Christmas market that evening, Friday we are going to Drayton Manor and staying over in the hotel, Saturday a zoo trip, Sunday a farm trip and Xmas Eve the Santa send off at another local theme park!!! Then I m looking forward to some down time on 27th!!!
We love Christmas!!!

We will do our local zoo which is all lit up and free.
Ice skating
And a trip to to cinema to see the Grinch

We are at Drayton Manor now but I can't sleep. They upgraded us to a Thomas room and it's lovely. Excited to see the park in the morning. Last time it was fab.
We have done Grinch and nativity and panto with brownies. Ice skating next week.
Silent disco new years eve.

Dh is working over Christmas so we have booked a couple of nights in a lush hotel for after new year just so we can relax with the kids.

That’s so good to know @girlicorne. I have 4 dc and 2 have ASD and they are all obsessed with HP. It’s not a surprise though, we can’t do much in the way of surprises hetmre, but we are really looking forward to it!

Wow. that’s some list girlcorne!

This year we are doing Kielder Winter Wonderland tomorrow, and another 2 christmas parties, a panto on 23rd and ice skating and gingerbread house on 24th.

In the future I would like to see The Snowman on stage and May be a weekend in London at christmastime. I'd love to do some Christmas markets when the dc are a bit bigger and would enjoy it.

My children are much older so doing the Birmingham market and drinking hot cider.

Mine are late teens now.
We used to go to London, the lights on Regent Street , Hamleys.
McD or Pizza Hut
Been to Winter Wonderland when they were little

Now :

Going to London with DD before Christmas (we go 23rd) , have a look around, see the lights. Get hauled into Selfridges to buy her make-up.
Get hauled into Urban Outfitters (both of them) to look at clothes.

Am allowed to poke my nose into Uniqlo, M&S, John Lewis but get told firmly "You don't need that" .

Get home , watch a film or something and order a take away .
DD will ponce about for the rest of the night "Washing That London out of my skin" .

Can't wait

Bump

Places that we visit every year are:
-Christmas lights and windows in London
-Ice skating at the Tower of London
-local 'polar' express
-Rochester Dickensian Christmas
-local town torchlit parade.

Things i have done as a treat with my children:
-Lapland
-Harry Potter tour (it has snow at Christmas and is worth every penny)
-London Panto
-Carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall
-Northern Lights tour in Iceland, which included sleigh ride, Aurora watching, Blue Lagoon etc

This year we've done:
Christmas light switch on
Christmas market
Stick Man and Snowman stay & play
Gruffalo's Child & Highway Rat with live orchestra
Santa's grotto after a PAYF production of Tabby McTat (proceeds went to homeless charity for extra essentials over Christmas)
Cinema trips to see Grinch & Small Foot

Coming up we've got:
The Nutcracker for toddlers
Jolly Christmas Postman Live
Stick Man Messy Play

In previous years we've done Story time with Santa but we booked theatre performances this year as strangely it was much cheaper per person!

Carol service
Local village lights
Watch Netflix Christmas film
Put up decorations
Having 3 lots of friends to visit

And... buying DS a christmas fortnite skin coz that's really the highlight of the season

Some nice things everyone’s doing 🙂

@Ledkr hope you had an amazing day today??? The Thomas rooms are brilliant, we go every Christmas and this is the first year ww have just booked a normal family room, at 8 and 10 last year the kids seemed a bit too grown up compared to everyone else at the fat controller's breakfast!!! So this year we have left the Thomas rooms for the littler ones who may appreciate it more than my two :-) ( and the family room is £100 cheaper!!!!)

We have rockets to go:
Ice skating
Visit Santa
Olympia horse show
Santa train

I also want to:
See the Snowdogs at a local NT property
Toddler church Christmas party
Fly kites on a beach
Make reindeer cookies
Make paper chains
Make paper snowflakes