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

December 19, 2018 7:19 am0 comments

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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:

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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!”
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!
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.
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!
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!