If restrictions persist we'll still make December lovely, ideas thread

[Walkley18]

I'm trying to think of ideas for Dec / run up to Christmas in case restrictions persist/ get worse. So thinking if no Christmas markets / shopping / usual days out / or larger family events, what else is there? I have older teen kids but still want it to be special. Anyone in? Younger kids ideas also welcome. So far I have:

Find out great streets/ houses with Christmas lights, make a night of it with hot choc etc

Make Christmas tree decorations, chocolate and non edible

Find a lovely pub after country walk, with outdoor heaters to enjoy the countryside / sprinkling of snow (reaching I know!)

December boxes including list of 12 favourite movies we watch in order, so number 1 family favourite on Christmas Eve

If possible discover houses with unusual decorations further afield and do a travel scavenger hunt altogether.

Please join and give your lovely ideas!

We've just ordered some outdoor lights, we never normally bother with outside but this year want to make a bit more of an effort.
I'm going to make some dried orange garlands if I get time, and get some edible flowers to make pretty chocolate as gifts for the neighbours.
Going to make sure we watch at least one Christmas film DS will be one so I'm hoping he might take more of an interest, even if not for the whole thing!

I'm also going to try and make some of my own gift wrap using the brown paper roll I've got, and do an activities advent calendar for us, so different activities to do with DS each day. He won't have much of a clue it's happening really, but it's a way to make things a bit different.

Even though he's young we'll be doing stockings over the mantelpiece and a mince pie for Santa, and a lovely breakfast in the morning.
I think if the weather is okay we'll go for a Christmas day walk to the canal and park.

Great that you're thinking of the birds @forgetthehousework and the neighbours @putmynewshoeson. I've ordered a bag of these to add to brown paper wrapped gifts.

Nice pinecones! I have some of those to put on picture frames. I'm starting sewing tree decs for friends this afternoon, quite excited!

There are some lovely ideas on this thread!

One thing I mentioned on another thread that we will do again this year is a song advent. My youngest DS (5) came up with it last year ( no idea where he saw it!) and it was lots of fun. Basically before the first of December everyone chooses x number of songs ( to make 24 songs in total), my DS then wrote them on bits of paper and decorated it and then last year we put it in a sack and took turns to pick one blind. We then play that song over breakfast. This year I think I might put them into a reusable advent calendar.

My plans include:

Lots of frosty walks in the forest and around the frozen lake

Collecting fallen pinecones so we can have some fragrant log fires

Make a wreath for the front door

Decorate outside of house so it looks really festive to people walking by.

On a mild night - build up the fire pit and brazier and sit outside to watch the stars and drinking hot toddies (all Dc are adults now btw. Could do the same with hot chocs and younger DC if they are safe around fire.)

Christmassy film nights with popcorn and a box of chocolates

Candlelit dinners

Old fashioned games nights of charades, hide and seek etc (DC LOVED playing that during lockdown even though they are late teens!)

Casino nights (played for plastic poker chips not money)

Board game nights (confession - I hate board games but DH and DC love them, so I join in.)

Word game nights like Scrabble and Bananagrams (love these)

Christmas quizzes set by each member of the family.

Christmas cabaret night - everyone does a turn

Maybe a winter picnic if there's a sunny, frosty day - climb the hill, lay out groundsheets and thick blankets. Bring soup and fresh baked pasties. Play frisbee etc to stay warm

Watching the Morris Men dance through the village on Boxing Day

Playing Carols from Kings CDs while I bake mince pies and sticky toffee puddings

Sounds like everyone has some fab ideas! I have added the Advent songs @littlestpogo to my list, which, thanks to this thread, is now two pages long! What I am really enjoying is that the ideas posters are sharing sound even better than normal activities tbh. Thank you everyone and keep posting.

Difficult to make plans without knowing what restrictions will be in place. Usually DH and my family fly over to stay with us for the week between Christmas and new year

I came across this idea online and thought it was lovely.

Secret angel.

Place all your family member names in a bowl and each person draws a name and becomes his or her secret angel.

The idea is to do nice things for the person you drew without being caught. On Christmas Eve, everyone takes a guess who his or her secret angel is and then they are revealed during dinner.

These ideas are lovely!

We’re planning a sleepover together downstairs with stories, maybe a new audiobook (winter/Christmas themed) and hot chocolate.

Just booked a theatre show (done by a theatre over zoom) for the 29th November, so not quite Christmas season but moving towards it.

We dry rosemary and put it into hoops to hang above doors for the new year. I’ll probably start a wine ready to be opened in the summer and maybe a mead. Also I’ll make some wine or similar for the following Christmas.

A treasure hunt with clues inside. Lots of nice walks. Probably some swingball and similar in mild weather. Making decorations and baking. Board games. Card games and maybe some old fashioned games like blind mans buff/sardines. Maybe a fun play or puppet show. Foraging nuts from the hedgerows and roasting them. I think I’m going to relearn knitting and I need to make a rag rug for our downstairs, which I might teach DC. Having some fun with the fire pit. Continuing to grow winter lettuce and similar. Have a pillow fight.

We watch Angela’s Christmas on Christmas Eve and will be again this year.

And leading up to it all, we do Dinovember. Exhausting Coming up with new ideas, but DC have the best time seeing what their toy dinosaurs get up to in the night! DS’s been asking how long until Dinovember since August!

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz - I love that Secret Angel idea. It's brilliant.

@forgetthehousework - that's a good one. We used to make fat balls for the birds when DC were young but started buying them. Think I'll make them again this year.

Finding holly etc on walks and using to make wreaths. Maybe some distanced carol singing in some way?

Mine are at Uni, at least one is. The other one is moving into halls on Tuesday, restrictions permitting. If they can’t come home for Christmas I will order their stocking fillers to their accommodations. Also thinking of ordering something like Gusto food for them.

My DTs will be 5 just before Christmas and are excited about it already; unfortunately it's the first year we won't be able to do much so these ideas are lovely, thank you all!

We're going to do a couple of outdoor events (we are Home Counties, can get to Kew at a push for the lights, for example) which hopefully will still run whatever happens...

The DC love making Christmas presents - cookies, chocolates etc - and throwing Christmas sugar shapes and/ or tons of glitter over them. I may start practising face painting for them as that's something they'll definitely miss, they're always the first in the queue for that!

Just bought battery lit candy canes and oversized baubles from Home Bargains for front garden, and a battery lit lantern from garden centre. Any other good outdoor dex around at mo? I'm just getting started!

Maybe slightly niche but I’ve wanted to do it for ages. Does anyone know of any companies who send you all the materials you need and then run a virtual wreath making workshop?
Thinking that could be fun for family members who can’t be physically together

Does anyone have a link to a good 'doing things' advent calendar. A friend had a 'doing a good turn every day in December' one once. It was really brilliant and good fun. Easy to do too.

So many lovely ideas here.

We will be having lots of games nights and movies nights.

Long walks with a flask of hot chocolate.

On the last day of term I plan on building a massive blanket fort in the living room as a surprise when they got home. Lots of fairy lights and cushions etc. They can have dinner in there and watch a movie etc.

Plenty of crafts.

All the baking!

We are going to do a few random acts of kindness for family, friends and strangers.

A North Pole breakfast.

Disco baths (my two wouldn’t go in for a spa day yet but they love this). Bath bombs, candles, bubble machine, music and glow sticks in the water.

@Turnedouttoes not seen of one but this is something I would love to find myself.

Advent activities

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/Christmas/3748547-Activity-task-advent-calendar

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/Christmas/3021165-Activities-for-Advent-Calendars-or-just-in-the-run-up-to-Christmas

Thank you @Canklesforankles

Can anyone recommend a classy looking bow that makes the front door looks like it’s wrapped up like a present? I can’t find much on Amazon

@MagpieSong please tell me more about Dinovember! It sounds brilliant.

@Turnedouttoes I reckon Etsy might have something? If you can crochet there's some crochet Christmas wreath patterns.

Make your own Christmas crackers, so start collecting little fillers and write your own jokes!

Do a Christmas pass the parcel for between the starter and main course on Christmas Day to Christmas songs - that keeps everyone seated whilst I dish up.

@Twilightstarbright, aha! So every night in November (first night is 31st, so when DC wake up on 1st they see it), the toy plastic dinosaurs come alive. They get up to all sorts of mischief, but occasionally are quite helpful too! We usually end on a big finale relating to some sort of Christmas story - we had a Love Actually one, where the Dinos met (new) relatives flying and coming by train in for Christmas; and a Narnia one where one Dino was a white witch and a toy lion got involved. Ours love it! I make those photo books for each year and add a little 'story' in, so they have a nice way to look back on all the silly things the Dinos did each year. It gets hilarious if we visit family and they come with us. The biggest question when we moved house last year was 'Will Dinovember still happen in the new house?' Everyone was very relieved when it did!