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Top 20 Christmas Break Activites to do on a Budget With Your Family

Top 20 Christmas Break Activites to do on a Budget With Your Family

ChristmasActivONBudgetThis post contains affiliate links.  As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

It’s almost Christmas!  Yeah!  I look forward to the break that my kids get from school more than anything!  I love having them home…I really do!  Trust me, I have my days when I want to pull my hair out because they are home, but for the most part, I love to hang out with them.  Yesterday, I was sitting down to my computer to make a list (yes, confession time, I’m a HUGE list maker – anyone else out there make a cazillion lists just so you can cross stuff off them?!) of all the fun things we were going to do over Christmas Break.  Or should I say, a list of all the things I’m hoping we get to do over Christmas Break.  This year, my husband is going to take a week off – and we don’t plan to go anywhere – it will be a sort of “stay-cation” and I’m super excited!  We all know Christmas can be expensive enough, so we plan to do a lot of fun things, that make lasting memories, that don’t cost very much – which you all know is how we roll around here.  There are all sorts of fun things you can do that don’t cost much and I plan to have a blast doing them (and hopefully my family will too)!  Grab a pencil and make a list!  Here is my Top 20 List of Fun Christmas Break Activities To Do On A Budget With Your Family:

 

  1. Make a Dollar Store Ornament:  I found clear plastic bulbs at my local Dollar Store and we plan to make these cute Time Capsule ornaments that I found on Pinterest.  If you can’t find any clear plastic bulbs at your local Dollar Store – try these instead.
  2. Gingerbread House Competition: Every year we have a Gingerbread House competition – usually boys vs. girls and we set a time limit and use these store bought gingerbread house kits and get crafting!  If you love to bake, you can make your own gingerbread ahead of time like this recipe from tikkido.com to use, or do what I do, buy the kits the day after Christmas and use them the following year!  The kits are everywhere after Christmas and are usually 70-80% off!  I always pick up a few and pack them away with our Christmas decor to use the following year!
  3. Play a Family Board Game: One of our family favorites is Headbandz!  We giggle and laugh like crazy when we play this silly game – especially at our youngest son who loves to cheat!  Actually, he loves to win at all costs so he tries to find creative ways to cheat!  Silly kid!  I picked up my copy of Headbandz on VarageSale for only $2!  You can also check your local Goodwill, or Thrift Store and even a kids second-hand thrift store.  Or you can buy Headbandz now!
  4. After Christmas Clearance Sales: Our family loves to hunt for good deals the day after Christmas!  While this may not sound like a family activity, it sure is in our house!  Or family gets very into decorating our house with Christmas Lights!  We all love to help and we have a tradition of going shopping for clearance deals on lights and decor the day after Christmas!  All three of our kids think it’s an adventure to find the best deals on decor for the yard and we spend a good portion of the day after Christmas out hunting for deals!  Of course, we usually go out for lunch too!
  5. Go to a Cheap Holiday Movie:  Our local movie theater shows early movies before noon on Saturday mornings for only $5!  When you are taking a family of 5 to see a movie this is a doable deal every once and while!  There always seems to be a good holiday movie that comes out around Christmas time and so this is a cheaper, fun thing to do, especially if your kids don’t get to go to the movies very often.  I have a movie gift card that I was given last Christmas that we still have not used, so we plan to use that and with the money we save we might spring for popcorn!  Of course we will get the BIG one and share it, and our theater gives free refills on the BIG popcorn!  Score!
  6. Go Out to Eat:  Find some local restaurants that have Kids Eat Free or Kids Eat for $1.99 and have a special meal out!  One of my local favorites is Newks and right now they are offering Kids Eat for $1.99!  Not too bad for a meal out!
  7. Play Snow Soccer:  We recently did this in Montana over Thanksgiving when we were visiting family.  Our family LOVES soccer and what better way to play it than on a field of snow?!  Sounds crazy, well, it was a blast!  We had a decent snowfall, and we cleared off some of the snow on a much smaller field, but left enough snow to run across it and kick a soccer ball.  We set up 2 pop-up soccer goals and put on all our snow gear and played a soccer game!  It was so much fun!
  8. Have a Snowball Fight:  If you have snow, then have a snowball fight!  Use these tools to help you make snowballs or just go ‘old school’ and make them yourself.  I’m praying for some snow here in Colorado, but it’s almost Christmas and we have had 60 degree weather all week.
  9. Go Sledding:  We love to go sledding in our neighborhood and have recently found a great hill not far from our house that is perfect for sledding!  I found all our sleds at garage sales and am thankful, because we seem to go through a lot of them!  If you need some sleds, you can buy them here.  Call some neighbors to join you in the fun!
  10. Go Look at Christmas Lights:  Looking at Christmas lights has to be one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions!  I love it so much that I make our family go look at lights on Christmas night!  Thankfully, my family loves this activity about as much as I do and will go look at light multiple nights in a row!  Living in a big city helps as well, there are so many lights to go see!  We usually start in our town and work our way out from there!  We have been doing this for so many years now that we have some of our favorite houses that put up lights every year that we go see and then we love finding new ones!   We don’t just jump in the car and start driving around, we ALWAYS splurge and stop at McDonalds (which is right around the corner from our house) and get $1 drinks to sip along the way!  You can always make your own hot cocoa and take it along with you.  My kids love to put their PJs on as well!  I’ve also learned that if I want this activity to last awhile, I need to bring snacks too!  I usually get a BIG bag of Smartfoods Popcorn to take along and that seems to keep everyone happy for quite some time!
  11. Christmas Color-By-Number:  Even though my kids are getting a bit older, they still love a good Christmas craft and I stumbled upon some Color-By-Number sheets that I could just print off from Pinterest.  I’ve been surprised how long they sat their together and colored the sheets.  There are lots of them online and on Pinterest and this makes for a frugal activity you can do with your whole family!  These are the ones I found on Pinterest.
  12. Bake Cookies:  Get the whole family together and spend some time baking!  I realize this may not be fun for some people, but goodness, in our family we all love to bake! I have a ton of great recipes on my KatrinasWorld Pinterest page you can check out!  A few of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes are: Peppermint Meltaways from CookingClassy.com and  Cherry Chocolate Kisses from CurvyCarrot.com.  We make both of these every Christmas and then hand them out to all our neighbors!
  13. Watch The Grinch: Rent from your local library or buy, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and bake these Grinch cookies from inKatrinasKitchen.com!  Then, you must also make Grinch Punch and sit down and watch the movie and eat your yummy treats! It’s a silly tradition, but one that our family does every year and we just love it!  It’s a great night-time activity to do and is so much fun!
  14. Home Alone + Breakfast:  This activity may sound silly, but somehow it’s grown to be one of our family favorites.   Have friends over for breakfast and watch the original Home Alone movie – or have breakfast for dinner and watch the movie at night!  I’m not sure why we picked Home Alone, but it’s a classic that our family loves to watch, plus we have dear friends that we’ve made this a tradition to do every Christmas break and it’s something I look forward to each year!  This year we are planning to have our friends come over for dinner instead of breakfast, but we still plan to eat breakfast for dinner!
  15. Read the Christmas Story:  On Christmas Eve, act out the Christmas Story directly from the Bible – you can find it in Luke 2:1-20.  If you have young kids, have them dress up and act out the parts as you read.  We have done this since I was a little girl and I even have a rocking horse that is perfect for the Donkey that Mary rides on!
  16. Birthday Party for Jesus:  On Christmas Eve we throw a birthday party for Jesus!  After we read and act out the Christmas story from the Bible (this can be found in Luke 2:1-20), we have birthday cake and celebrate Jesus’ birth!  Get creative with your kids and have them help you make the birthday cake earlier in the day – it can look like whatever you want!  We even put candles on our cake and sing Him “Happy Birthday!”
  17. Friends + Chili + Board Games:  Invite a family over to share chili and cornbread and play board games.  We have a couple favorite family board games right now, Qwirkle and Wits and Wagers!  Both are great family-friendly games!  Wits and Wagers is so much fun for a larger group and even younger kids can play along!
  18. Volunteer:  Volunteer your time as a family helping at your church for all the extra Christmas Eve services they will be having.  Our family helps out in the Children’s department with the 4year olds so the adults can attend the Christmas Eve Candlelight service.  If watching kids is not your thing, I’m sure there are lots of other things your family can help out with, like: serving coffee and cookies, greeting at the door, handing out bulletins, cleaning, helping set up extra chairs, etc.
  19. Go Look at Lights Again:  In my area our local newspaper puts out a list of addresses of the best Christmas lights to see all over our city – look up the addresses and go see some more lights!  We also have a lot of local Facebook groups in my area that keep a running list of great places to see lights.  Don’t forget to stop and get drinks along the way!
  20. Go Caroling:  This is completely FREE!  Gather some friends together and go sing Christmas carols to your neighbors!  I’m horrible at singing, but goodness, how fun is this to do?!   I know in my neighborhood, it would shock my neighbors to have me ring the doorbell and then start singing!  We’ve never done this before as a family, but we just might give it a try this year!

This post contains affiliate links.  As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

ChristmasActivONBudget

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December 19, 20180 commentsRead More
How To Make Homemade Chalk

How To Make Homemade Chalk

ChalkThe summer was amazing and I’m totally honest when I say this – not long enough!  I love to have my kids at home with me – YES, they drive me absolutely crazy, but I love to have them around – all three of them.  We had many days this summer that we needed to escape the heat and be indoors and when we found ourselves bored, we’d either start baking or crafting!

About 7 years ago, my older son and I tried to make homemade chalk and let’s just say, it’s didn’t go so well.  It involved a little bit of food coloring, and toilet paper rolls and by the time they dried 5 days later, we never could get them out of the toilet paper rolls!  Don’t ask…it was a bad idea.  :)  So, it was time to try again!

I did some looking around on Pinterest and found a great post by Princess Pinky Girl all about how to make your own sidewalk chalk.  We followed this recipe pretty closely, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t really measure everything and we used a lot more of the paint – I mean, who doesn’t want super bright colors?  I’m so glad I did – because our colors are very bright and we love using these!  I did learn a few things along the way that might make it easier and we had to let our dry a lot longer than just 24 hours.  Thank you to Princess Pinky Girl for your great post and ideas!  Below is my recipe and what we actually did that worked well for us.

Homemade Chalk Recipe

Gather these items:

  • Plaster of Paris Dry Powder (I actually found a huge tub of this at a garage sale for super cheap – been saving it for awhile now – you can get at any craft store).
  • Tempura Paint (I got 7 bright colors and got big sizes – 24oz bottles.  In fact, another great sale was going on at my local Hobby Lobby – I paid only $1 for each bottle).
  • Silicon molds or candy melt molds (I had a silicon Pampered Chef cupcake flower mold that worked great, and I found a big stack of candy melt molds at a garage sale for less than dollar – these worked really well).
  • Over-sized Disposable Cups
  • Plastic Spoons
  • Water

Homemade Chalk Recipe:

  • We mixed up each color in it’s own disposable cup.  I started out with only 3 colors to begin with because I have 3 kids and I wanted them each to have their own color to mix up.  The amount of colors you can make with this recipe will depend on how many molds you have on hand.
  • Fill each up with about 3/4 cup of water.
  • Add about 1/2 cup of paint to the water and mix well.  The original recipe says about 1/4 cup of paint, but I really liked the super bright colors that we achieved with 1/2 cup of paint.
  • Next, add 1 cup of the dry plaster of paris powder and start mixing with your plastic spoon.  Make sure to mix really well. I did learn that if you don’t get it all completely mixed up you will have pockets of the white plaster of paris in your dry chalk that never was mixed with the paint.  Not a big deal, but a bummer when you are coloring something very specifically and it turns white on you.  Double check after your kid’s arms tire out and make sure there are no lumps.
  • Pour into molds and then very gently pound the mold on the counter to pop any air pockets or bubbles and to completely flatten.
  • You can layer different colors in the molds, just don’t mix them up.  It does dry really with really cool swirls in it!
  • Let them dry for at least 3 full days before you try to take them out of the molds.  They will pop right out of a mold when they are completely dry.  If you try to pop them out too early, they actually crumble and that’s a bummer (Yes, this happened a few times to us).  The candy molds dried much faster than the cupcake molds.  If you can set them to dry outside in full sunlight, they may dry much faster.  You can tell when they are NOT dry by the color change they have – the outside edges will dry lighter in color and if the inside is still well, it will look darker and like it has a wet spot on it.  My candy molds dried in about 3 days and I did eventually turn them upside down so that the bottom would dry as well – a few actually fell out once they were dry.  My flower regular sized cupcake molds took about 6 full days to dry all the way and at about 4 days, I was able to pop them out and I set them outside in the full sun to dry all the way, which took another 2 days.

The colors are awesome, bright, and so fun to use!  My kids love this chalk and we have a great time using it!  I love this chalk because the colors are so fun!  I can’t wait to make this recipe again and am now on the hunt for more fun candy molds at garage sales.  I would totally recommend making this chalk with your kids – it’s really a fun, easy, and pretty quick craft!  I’m hoping to make some as gifts to give the cousins for Christmas!

Let me know if you try this recipe out!  Happy coloring!

Chalk

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August 16, 20160 commentsRead More
Homemade Melted Bead Sun Catchers

Homemade Melted Bead Sun Catchers

HomemadeSunCatchersIt’s a snowy April day in Colorado and I’m annoyed.  Super annoyed.  I don’t like snow, but I really don’t like snow in April – and we are just days from May.  I want to be outside doing fun things with my kids, not inside FREEZING and wishing we were outside.  Oh well.  On top of it, my daughter is home sick from school, she’s not feeling terrible, but bad enough to need a day of “rest” which she really didn’t do at all today.  Probably my fault, I’ve never really known how to slow down, let alone sit still – there is always something I should be doing – right?!

Guess what we did on this day of cold, sick, snowy rest?  We made homemade melted bead sun catchers!  Super fun, but probably the most stinky craft I have ever done – EVER.  Could be that it’s sooo cold out, and I can’t have every door and window open to push out the smell, but still, it’s a stinky craft.  I’m not looking forward to the look that I’m sure to get of pure disgust from my husband when he gets home today.  I’m positive he will hold his nose and ask me just what the terrible smell as soon as he walks through the door.  The even worst part is that I have cracked a lot of the windows just a little bit, the oven vent is blowing on super high, I have sprayed every can of Glade smelly stuff I have through the house, and I’ve lit every candle in my hous.  Now it smells like burning plastic mixed with lemon pound cake, pear berry, and island tropics! It’s cold and very fragrant in my house right now (my dog is soo cold from the windows open that she is laying directly on the heating vent in the floor)!  It makes me laugh just describing it!   :)

Anyways, we had a great time making this craft - Melted Bead Sun Catchers - that I found on Pinterest from The Artful Parent.  My kids really enjoyed the time together arranging the beads and making cool designs.  It’s crazy how their different personalities come into play – my 10 year old just wants to get them done as fast as he can, my middle daughter very carefully and slowly picks out her colors and arranges her designs, while my youngest just wanted every single bead that the older two “oohed” and “ahhhed” about.  Hilarious!  This craft took us about 30 minutes and the cooking time was close to 25 minutes.  I’m still venting out the house over an hour later and the smell is just lingering.  I’m wondering if some of the beads we used are causing the terrible smell.  We had these very little pink beads that did not melt at all – they just changed to a burnt color – for all I know they very well could be the main cause of the terrible smell in my house.  Sounds like The Artful Parent had good luck with the smell not being too bad.   Besides the smell, this was a lot of fun!

Give them a try when you have a chance (maybe on a warmer day when you can open all the windows to air out the house in case you have a problem with the smell)!

Here’s to being a fun mom that crafts with her kids!  Hugs to you all!

HomemadeSunCatchers

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April 29, 20160 commentsRead More