Cheap ideas to entertain the kids on Xmas holidays

[Shadycurtain]

Hi,

Thinking ahead to Xmas school holidays, I’m looking for ideas of
cheap and free ways to keep my 6 year old entertained. I find them the hardest school holidays as we have zero extended family, so no one to visit or visit us. Usually we see friends on the other school holidays, but others are often busy around Xmas seeing their extended families so meeting others isn’t possible as much over the Xmas holidays.

It’s an easy problem to solve if able to throw money at it, but this year our budget is limited to maybe £200 for spending money for the 2 week period, so £100 per week. 2 adults and 1 kid, so eating out would kill that budget very quickly.

Not too sure of where you are based but..

• Garden Centres (usually have Christmas lights/decs, ours has a cheap soft play too)
• Swimming
• Soft Play
• Baking
• Christmas lights (we have a light trail near us)
• Ice Skating
• Craft Day

Check events near you on Facebook. I usually find good things on there. For example just seen a local farm I didn’t know existed is doing cheap pony rides for Xmas.

Everything is ridiculously expensive isn’t it? 😩 I’m looking for things for us to do with our 2 year old but it’s looking like we’re only going to be able to do a couple of days out (probably at the end of November for off peak prices as well) as everything just costs so much!! Even the play area we have taken him to for the the last 2 years has gone up to almost £30 as they’ve added more activities and food to the sessions that he probably won’t even eat 😩

We are past the soft play stage, unless with a friend, then he will go, but thanks for the other ideas!

I hate the idea of him sitting in front of the TV for a fortnight, but it’s probably what will end up happening most days as everything is just so expensive.

What sort of area do you live in? We live in a very small town but have a library, gallery, interesting old churches to look round, sports centre, 4 or 5 different parks, garden centre.
You could do a charity shop trail .. make a quiz up about the area you live in ..
At home pre Christmas you could make thank you cards and write them afterwards.
Cookery, crafts ... I used to do a theme 'day' or afternoon .. ie; focus on a different country, get books and maps from the library .. cook a 'national dish', make some art work. Board games, cards, de-cluttering.
If all else fails homework or school projects .
Invite another child over? I have an only DC and found other parents would happily leave their child to play with mine for an afternoon (& you might get an invite back).
Some churches run free holiday activities.
I always found plenty to do and rarely spent much money .. I never liked 'paying' for entertainment.

Thank you, great ideas there. We live on the outskirts of a small/medium city. Feel like we’ve been to all the local attractions a few times tho! Plus parking charges are insane now so can’t drive in as often.

When I was a kid and there was nothing to do outside and no money I LOVED Christmas. We did same things every year and it never got old. Just built the anticipation!

• Christingle service at church (if it’s your thing)
• carols service at church
• mum found some old paper plates and took a little stack of supermarket “food to order” catalogs and we would cut out food and Pritt-stick the food on to design the perfect Christmas dinner. I adored doing this! I did it once at a Christmas playdate for dd and 4 friends and they loved it
• help write Christmas cards and wrap gifts for family/neighbours
• make mince pies
• go and visit my gran on the bus and come back at night, count all the houses with Christmas trees lit
• Christmas specials on TV (back then no streaming). The cbbc panto is fun.
• garden centre to look at Christmas decorations
• decorate the Christmas tree. I would always do Christmas crafts - make a snowman out of a toilet roll and cotton wool, cut out snowflakes, for increasingly elaborate as I got older
• play! I loved some time just to play with my toys and games at home. Play dates brilliant too - mum would do a special play date with my bff where we used sheets and pegs and furniture to make a den and then ate tea in there

have a very happy Christmas

Tractor run - if you've got one local
Christmas lights switch on
Christmas tree festival at a local church
Carol service and Christingle

Might be worth signing up for a National Trust pass, then taking a packed lunch and just buying the odd treat like tea and cake while out. Lots of different places to explore with lovely trails and stately houses.

Before Christmas - do one last batch of baking, biscuits, mince pies

Hot Chocolate in a thermos flask and freshly baked biscuits and walk/drive around an area you know which has lots of lights.

Movie and "junk food" (for us homemade chicken nuggets, chips, pizza) after an early bath in pyjamas. We eat together and the adults get a glass of wine/beer and DD had the treat of a fanta/sprite, something reserved for eating out.

On Boxing Day we always did a walk after Christmas if it was dry. We took hot chocolate and some snacks and left them in the car and had them when we finished. Lunch was leftovers from Christmas Day. We always have a new board game for the afternoon and then cooked something together.

Check if there is anything local going on after Christmas. Maybe a museum you haven't been to for a while. Could you stretch for one proper day out with a packed lunch/get a meal deal and go for tea and cake?

Make a gingerbread house! Baking is always a good option but a gingerbread house is a proper project and can easily take up a full day or chunks of two days with dodgy weather.

Do you have a trampoline park anywhere near you? Mine is a bit older but loves trampolining. Or bowling?

We take them out on their scooters if dry, and you can mix it up so different family members pick the destination/route. I always mean to try the hot dogs in a thermos flask trick people post on here!

Lots of time outdoors such as walks in the park and woods will help balance the time watching tv. Feed the ducks. Take hot chocolate.

Kids cinema

Library, local galleries and museums. Book any events they're running for Christmas.

Ice skating

Baking Christmas biscuits and festive bread/buns

If you have a garden, make and set up a bird feeder.

Train trip somewhere for a day. Family and friends railcard is good for getting cheaper tickets. You can get one with Tesco clubcard vouchers if you use that

It is so easy to spend £££ but I think at that age they won't appreciate it any more than the free things.
Any days that the weather is nice, go to the park or go for a walk - i like PP's suggestion of taking a flask - makes it more special.
Drive around to look at Christmas lights - your local Facebook group would be able to recommend where to find overly decorated houses.
Agree re garden centres, again logs Facebook group would be able so say which have best Christmas displays.
Make paper chains and paper snowflakes to decorate their bedroom. This is a good activity to do with a friend - surely they won't be with extended family the whole time?
Baking as already suggested is a good one but if it's not your thing, make chocolate crispy cakes, optionally top with Christmas sprinkles.
Take the opportunity to go through all their toys, see if there are any that can go to a charity shop - do this early so that they can be bought for Christmas gifts. It will also remind you/them of things they've not played with for a while.
Have a games afternoon.
Christmas films with microwave popcorn

Buy aChristmas jigsaw, lots of play value in that

Perhaps it's looking at it through rose tinted specs but the best thing about the Christmas hols was the vegging, loads of tele watching and being able to unwind.

I used to love watching 'the raccoon's' video (when video's first came out) with my brother snuggled up on the sofa- my mum used to give us a Tott of baileys as well! I was very much under 10 :)

Maybe not the under age boozing but you get the idea.

Drive around to look at Christmas lights. Bring a flask if hot chocolate and some treats.
A Christmas movie night or trip to the cinema. They usually have some Christmas films on.
A games night at home. Maybe include a board game from father christmas and make an evening out of playing it together.
Breakfast out somewhere nice. It's usually cheaper than dinner and mine love going for pancakes somewhere.

My two love Gingerbread houses. We buy the Hansel and Gretel one from Lidl. They'll happily spend an afternoon decorating it. They're usually around £6 I think.

Twilight walks. We started this in 2020 when everything locked down again around Christmas. We head out with a torch, flask of soup or hot chocolate and tell ghost stories. Our favourite spot is woodland with fairy doors. The kids love how different everything looks by torchlight.

Board games. We take it in turns to pick one.

Picnic tea on the floor by the Christmas tree.

Outdoor Carol service.

A craft project. We build something every year. This year dc1 wants to make Baba Yaga's chicken legged house for the playmobil witch. Previous years we've build a large robot called Bob out of recycling, a dinosaur and a snowman.

Building challenges. We have a ridiculous amount of building blocks, wooden animals, playmobil, duplo and lego. I put various themes in a jar (castle, snowman, forest etc) and they pull one out and build loosely based on that.

Beach trip. We always take a picnic to the beach in the Christmas holidays. Wrap up warm and build a sand castle.

Not particularly christmassy. My grandson still talks about this. You will need a packet of skittles and some milk. Put som milk on a white lipped plate and let it come up to room temperature. Then place different colour skittles in the milk and watch the different colours leach into the milk. You can either do this randomly or make patterns.

Apparently you can also do similar by pour warm water over the skittles or try it with m&ms or Smarties.

Echo a lot of the ideas above. My sons love this stuff:
Baking - gingerbread men, mince pies, decorate a pre-made gingerbread house (usually £6-8, even in M&S).
Christmas jigsaw - buy now (before prices/demand goes up) on ebay/vinted or from charity shop.
Garden centre trip to look at decorations - let him choose a new one for the tree.
Coffee shop trip - lot cheaper than a meal out but you can treat him to a Christmas flavoured hot choc or biscuit.
Cinema - I just bought a 97p one night travel insurance policy via Compare the Market in order to get a year of 'buy one get one free' cinema tickets every Tues & Weds. Wonka and Wish are two good Christmassy films coming out to save up for the holidays.
Playdates - you are right, most people seem to hunker down with family, but I find the first and last days of the holiday a good time to offer a play date, especially if they finish school early on the last day of term - nice to bring a friend home.
Christingle/Carol/nativity service at church.

A nice free one I used to do was to make a treasure hunt e.g. robin, mistletoe, reindeer, chimney etc., etc., (about 20 things) and try find them in shop windows - taking a photo of each one. Do altogether or split into teams if you have more than one adult.

Also a Christmas lights walk is nice, go round the most brightly decorated residential streets.