Entertaining your children at Christmas can be a fun and exciting time, making this time of year magical and one to remember can easily be achieved. Working with different budgets in mind we have put together some ideas below, on how you can entertain the little ones. You never know, you might enjoy it too!
If you can bare to let them near the Christmas decorations, let them help you decorate your home. This is a fun way to spend some quality family time together, especially with a Christmas movie on in the background. For young ones this can be a great opportunity to work on shapes and colours. For those children who like sensory items, the different textures from the decorations and the sparkle from lights would be wonderful.
Baking:
This is the time of year where baking is the perfect activity to fill a cold and wet afternoon with your children. You don’t need to be the next Bake-Off winner to ensure a fun time. Supermarkets will have lots of festive packs put together down the baking and seasonal aisles, so have a browse here if you are a complete novice. Check out the below for a few extra ideas to entertain your children with:
- Baking Gingerbread Biscuits – the perfect treat for Christmas! Allow your children to go crazy and decorate them with icing sugar, chocolate, cake decorations, whatever you can get your hands on.
- Gingerbread House Making – this one may be a little tricky, so supervising would be a good idea. Again, let their creativity flow and let them decorate it however they wish.
- Christmas Cakes – Either bake your own cakes, or buy some plain ones, and decorate with fun Christmas colours and treats. The perfect idea for Christmas Eve to leave one for Santa to nibble on!
- Festive Pastries – Using festive ingredients like turkey mince and cranberry sauce you can have a go at baking your own tasty pastries, perhaps ones with stuffing in it too! There will be loads of recipes online for you to follow and get inspiration from.
Sites like Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok will be full of festive baking ideas that you can entertain your children with this Christmas. So be sure to check them out.
Get Outside:
Yes, it may be damp and cold outside, but winter fresh air is amazing for you, especially if you have been cooped up all week at work. All the textures, sights and sounds outside change during the winter. A winter walk would be the perfect way to enjoy some time with your family as well as the nature near you. You could build in a stop mid-way at a local coffee shop, or create a fun trail for your children to follow and engage with.
As December gets into full swing, more and more houses will put up their festive Christmas lights, and how marvellous are they to admire. Put your coats, hats and scarves on and take your children out to look at the magnificent displays around you. Even a car journey with some Christmas songs playing would be a great way to get in the spirit and entertain your children.
If we are lucky to be blessed with snow make sure you get outside with your children and enjoy it! Build snowmen, make snow angels and have a snow ball fight. Once the fun is over you can enjoy a nice warm cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows and a festive film.
Crafts:
Christmas crafts are another fun way to spend a wintery afternoon or morning entertaining your children. Many shops out on high street will have lots of festive themed activity packs, books and colouring fun, so keep your eyes peeled when you are out. However, if you want to get super crafty, check out some ideas below to entertain your children with.
- Christmas Cards – send out some homemade Christmas cards to family and friends this Christmas, let your children decorate with pens, crayons, glitter whatever you will allow!
- Make Your Own Stockings – You can usually get hold of plain felt stockings, which are perfect to glue sequins, sew on beads and personalise. A really fun and engaging activity to keep your children captivated. These can then be used as wholesome Christmas décor.
- Decorations – aside from the stockings above you can get creative with recycled cardboard and other materials to make fun decorations. Paper bunting could be used to decorate your child’s room.
Again, sites like Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok would be fantastic to look at and find Christmas craft inspiration.
Places to Visit:
There are lots of festive places to go to that pop up this time of year. From a fantastic day out to a wholesome afternoon of festive fun, we have some ideas below on entertaining your children.
- Visit Santa – there will be somewhere local to you, maybe a garden or shopping centre, which will have put together a winter wonderland for you to take your children to visit.
- Ice Skating – lots of places have temporary ice rinks this time of year, if your children are capable and it is within your budget, why not take them ice skating?
- Craft Fairs – support local businesses and find a Christmas craft fair to visit. Many will have entertainment happening at the same time, as well as refreshments.
- A Local Pantomime – this is a brilliant way to entertain your children during the festive period, local groups will be putting on a thrilling pantomime. Most shows will probably offer a family ticket too, so you should be able to find a good deal.
As you can see, there is a multitude of activities you can do to entertain your children this Christmas. Whatever you get up to this festive period, be sure to take photos to look back on in months or years to come. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!
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