Christmas is a time for giving, but it’s also a time to receive. Kids are often on the receiving end of presents from Santa Claus on Christmas morning, and they’re usually pretty excited about what he brought them! But if want to know how do you keep your kids busy this holiday season? Here are eleven ideas that will help you get started.
Decorate Christmas Cookies
Decorating Christmas cookies is one of my favorite holiday traditions and a great way to keep the kiddos busy during the hustle and bustle of the holidays.
If your kids are really young, you can buy pre-made cookie dough for them to decorate with frosting and sprinkles. Bake the dough as desired and then set out a plate of frosting and a plate of different seasonal sprinkles to let them go wild!
You can also mix up a batch of sugar cookie dough that doesn’t need to be baked, then let the kids decorate it however they like. The best part is that once they’re done eating their creation, you’ll have plenty of sugar cookie dough leftover to use again next year!
Or just let your kids pour cake batter into cupcake liners bake them and then decorate them however they like. Use frosting, candy sprinkles, icing, crushed-up Oreos, or whatever else you can think of to let them go wild! You can even make cupcakes that look like snowmen with sugar cookie mix and colored frosting.
Stringing popcorn or cranberries together in long chains
I remember as a kid stringing together popcorn chains to hang on my family’s Christmas tree and how this was such a great holiday activity that kept me busy for hours. Well, if you are looking for a fun simple activity, this is a great activity for children of all ages.
If you want to make stringing popcorn easier for young kids, try using a needle to thread it through each kernel. If they’re old enough, they can do it on their own with the help of some adult supervision.
Or set out bowls of different colors and let them go at it! Older children can create their own designs, or make chains of different colors.
Make a gingerbread house from scratch
Making a gingerbread house is an activity that most kids absolutely love! If they’re old enough to carefully use a knife, you can let them cut their own candy into chunks and pieces that they can glue onto the icing on top of their gingerbread house.
If they don’t feel confident enough to do the cutting themselves, have them help you by collecting different-sized chunks of candy from each section of an assortment. Then let them glue the candies onto the top of their gingerbread house however they’d like.
Play Christmas carols on the piano
Kids love it when adults participate with them in activities that involve singing, dancing, arts and crafts, cooking… you name it! And getting your kids involved in playing Christmas carols on the piano or keyboard is a great way to get them singing festive songs while also teaching them how to play an instrument.
You can talk with them about which keys are used for which notes, then give them simple tunes they can plunk out on the piano. Of course, if they play well enough, you can turn it into a family activity and do something like this:
Have a family karaoke contest
Play a game of name that Christmas tune
Draw Christmas pictures and color them in
This is another fun, simple and colorful activity that kids love! It’s also a great way to get them excited about Christmas. You can color in pictures of ornaments with markers, crayons, or colored pencils, then hang their beautifully decorated Christmas pages on the wall for everyone to admire.
Put up a Mini Christmas tree and hang ornaments on it
If you have room for a mini Christmas tree, this activity is lots of fun! Kids can decorate their own tree however they like by using paper garlands, stickers, glue, glitter, or anything else that takes their fancy. You could even give them an assortment of different colored construction paper and let them hang whatever designs they’d like on the tree.
Once they’re done, place the tree in a corner somewhere so that other family members can admire their handiwork!
Write letters to Santa Claus
This is another great activity that also helps get your kids excited about Christmas! You can write a letter from your little one and ask them to dictate it to you. When they’re done, mail their letter off in a decorated envelope to Santa Claus at the North Pole (or any post office near you).
If you want to make writing a letter to Santa more of a challenge, get your kids involved in making their own envelopes. When they’re done with that, ask them to decorate the envelope using pictures from magazines or construction paper and tell you any information about themselves that they want Santa to know.
Make Christmas cards for family members
This is another fun activity for young kids.
Encourage them to paint, draw or color a picture of something Christmassy on the front of the card they’d like to make, then have them write inside what they want to say. You can help them with spelling if they need it!
Read a storybook about Santa Claus
This is an excellent activity for younger kids, as it’s a great way to prepare them for the big day on Christmas morning. You can read your child a story or two about Santa Claus and show them some pictures of him too! This will help them understand what they’re going to be getting on Christmas morning. Your little one might even decide to write a letter to Santa Claus themselves so be sure to keep some extra stamps on hand!
Put up decorations around the house
This is another fun activity that gets your kids excited about Christmas. Kids love putting up decorations and helping out wherever they can, so once you’ve finished decorating your tree or buying all of the presents, let them have a go at putting up some decorations around the house! You can use anything from tissue paper to tinsel, so get creative and encourage them to be as artistic as they like.
Learn about the history of Christmas customs
This will help your kids to learn about the history of Christmas and celebrate its traditions. For instance, you could teach them about how families used to celebrate the arrival of winter.
Christmas is a time for celebration and family, but it can be tough to keep kids entertained. With these 11 tips, they’ll have plenty of fun activities planned out! From reading Christmas stories about Santa Clause to making their own decorations, your little ones will stay busy all season long.
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