This is it – the last day in November. We’re getting deep into the holiday season now, and for my family that means lots and lots of baking cookies, watching Christmas movies and reading many Christmas stories.
The day after Thanksgiving we always put up our Christmas tree, decorate it and watch our first Christmas movie of the season. We light a candle each of the 12 nights before Christmas, sing songs and read part of the story of Jesus’ birth.
If you celebrate Christmas, I’m sure you have your favorite traditions. Maybe it’s going caroling, looking at lights or baking favorite treats. Of maybe it’s making homemade gifts, enjoying Advent activities or attending Christmas parties.
But maybe you’re also looking to do something a little different this year, something just a bit out of the ordinary.
Here are 10 different Christmas activities you might want to try with your family this season.
1. Make 3D snowflakes from Christmas gift wrap. Sara McGrath, author of the site Unschooling Lifestyle as well as several books, has a great article on how to make 3D snowflakes from Christmas gift wrap. It’s a really fun way to play with geometry.
2. Wrapping paper mosaic. While you have the Christmas wrapping paper out, why not use those leftover scraps to make a mosaic? You can even find very inexpensive paper at thrift stores right now. Using black construction paper as a background really makes the red and green colors stand out, but experiment with using other colors, too.
3. Anonymous secret Santa. Have you ever participated in a secret Santa present exchange? It’s a game where you buy presents for someone, maybe one little present for four days in a row and one bigger one on the last day, but you don’t reveal that you’re the one giving the other person the presents until the very last day. Well, why not think about five people you know that you could buy presents for. They could be elderly people who can’t get out much, a sick child, or someone who doesn’t have any other family. Leave anonymous gifts in their mailboxes or front doors, but don’t reveal who you are. Let the giving just come from the heart without expecting a thank-you in return.
4. Become a gingerbread house architect. Do you have a builder in your home? Then while you’re putting together your gingerbread house this year check out these other activities too: take a look at these 32 Amazing Architectural Designs of Gingerbread houses, read the book The Gingerbread Architect: Recipes and Blueprints for 12 Classic American Homes, and check out Mathwire.com’s wonderful gingerbread activities including measuring perimeter, surface area and volume of your gingerbread house (you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see these activities.)
5. Read The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey. This irreverent, witty, off-the-wall book was written by a scientist tackling some of the legends, traditions and lore surrounding Christmas. It’s definitely not a cute picture book, though, so probably only teens and up will enjoy the wit and surprising facts found in this book.
6. Research the origins of some traditional Christmas foods. Here are some sites to get you started: Christmas pudding, mince pie, fruitcake, and The Food Timeline – Christmas foods history.
7. Help your kids set up a Christmas budget. Let them decide how many people they’re going to buy presents for this year and divide by the amount of money they have. Ask them to figure out the sales tax they’ll need to spend on each person to reflect the actual amount of money they can spend J. Discuss the value of quality verses quantity. Look for ways to save even more money by shopping sales or using coupons.
8. Make a Christmas Windowsill Garden. You can find a great post at the blog Almost Unschoolers about how they created a Christmas windowsill garden and learned some fun math and science lessons along the way.
9. Watch Handel’s Last Chance, listen to Hallelujah! Handel, and then listen to the London’s Philharmonic orchestra perform Handel’s epic oratorio, Messiah. Handel’s Last Chance is part of the Composer’s DVD Series. It’s the story of how a young 10 year old thief named Jamie O’Flaherty and the composer George Frederic Handel become unlikely allies. Hallelujah! Handel is part of the Classical Kids audio series. It’s a wonderful audio story about a girl named Katarina who meets the composer Handel at a ball in London. Together they unravel the secrets of a young boy, which in turn helps Handel create an amazing composition.
10. Read a Christmas story from a different country of the world each of the 24 days before Christmas. Here are some books that include Christmas stories from countries around the globe. Joy to the World! Christmas Stories from Around the Globe, Christmas Around the World, and the Christmas Around the World series.
Photo Credit: moonlightbulb
What unusual Christmas activities does your family do? If you don’t celebrate Christmas, do you have any special activities you do around this time of year?