We cannot travel this year and you probably fear that it won't be a holiday in a true Christmas spirit... So how we could make this two-week winter break more memorable?
We collected ideas by students to students!
Here is what's on our winter bucket list:
Tune in to Rovaniemi Santa Clause Village online! On the 23rd December 2020 at 19h Finnish time you may watch live streaming online of Santa Clause departing from his village in Rovaniemi Finnish Lapland to distribute the gifts to all the children of the World. Watch the magic celebration online!
There is no snow? No problem, you can cut your own snowflakes from the paper and attach them to your windows with some soap, or hand them out on the thread or on the wall. The trick is to fold the paper correctly and here is a suggestion how to mark the paper corners so that you would not get lost during the folding.
Bake with your family! There is nothing better than baking with the people you love! You can find an excellent recipe for Christmas fudge here.
Or get your family together in and try to make this Winter Gingerbread House (under this link you'll find a recipe that suits also beginners, and the video will be a great tutorial for all levels). It is not an easy task, but lots of fun!
Here is a French version of “Maisonnette en pain d’épices”.
Have a gingerbread cookie competition! This is something I really want to do and would be a nice activity to bring the Christmas spirit in your house.
These are the rules:
There can be as many competitors as you want.
There is a judge who will choose the winner but, if everyone wants to participate, every single competitor will have to vote for a gingerbread cooky besides theirs. NO CHEATING.
There are plenty recipes online, but choose carefully as you have to win! How do you choose? by reviewing rating and comments from other readers.
Cut in nice shapes or buy cookie cutters on Amazon.
Make a delitious frosting and add some sparkles on top. Or use colored frosting to decorate.
Taste, comment and rate cookies! It's competition time, so make it right!
HAVE FUN!!
Put on your handcraft skills and make a bird house! It can be simple or more complex, decorated or not and you can find lots of inspirational ideas on Pinterest or tutorials on YouTube. It is also a nice activity to do with your parents.
But most of all it will be a place where you can always put some breadcrumbs for those birds that do not migrate in winter.
Board games always make family evening a wonderful moment. But on Christmas we love playing X-mas games (all of these you can buy also online):
Christmas-opoly or Christmas Monopoly
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas Journey or Charlie Brown Christmas journey
Christmas Eve board game
Holiday Fever Family Board Game (a collection of Christmas themed board games for families)
Christmas Bingo game
Try to through rings with the Christmas Nutcrackers Ring Toss Game Set or on Inflatable Christmas Reindeer Antler Hats.
Other super fun games to play with your family are:
Cluedo (and imagine being Sherlock Holmes)
Taboo
Triviat Pursuit (Q&A challenge, and you can get cards in various languages)
Organize a scavenger hunt and in the end give your family masks (safety first!!).
How to organize a scavenger? Prepare lots of cards and write down the objects inside the house or outside the house, which your family will have to find. Distribute the cards and set the timer. The one who finds most objects withing the time limit will win. Or you may do it without a timer, but the goal would be to find all objects. If you think you will have not enough of ideas for the cards, you may buy a ready-made Christmas Scavenger Hunt Game box with 220 suggestion cards.
Create your own Christmas ornaments. You can use them to decorate your house, Christmas tree or put on your bookshelves. This is such a nice activity to do with your family and there are so many variations.
You can sew an ornament with an old fabric in whatever shape you wish, and if you feel like it you can even embroider it.
Another thing you can do is go outside and take something that inspires you, like a pinecone ( you could even make a Santa Clous out of it), or a stick , or a branch, and decorate it like the way you want. You can find lots of inspirational ideas how to decorate pinecones on pinterest.
Or you may put cloves into oranges and all your house will be perfumed.
It can be also fun to do some traditional ornaments from your country, and make your family teach you them. I am sure each country has so many nice techniques and traditions to make your house decorations unique.
Try to make some Christmas origami! You can find online some simple ideas for your younger brothers and sisters, or if you feel like a pro, try to make these Christmas tree decoration together.
You can try to make yourself (or buy readymade) puppets and make a puppet theatre (in Italian “Teatro dei burattini con marionette”).
Put Christmas songs on and start dancing... If you want, you can also disturb your siblings by dancing in their room.
Or try to oraganize a Christmas song Karaoke! Whoever sings most and best, gets your prize.
You can decorate your room and your home.
Watch Christmas movies with your family while drinking tea.
Tea tasting is a true winter experience in itself too! Try many different variation. But you can also experience unusual flavours from these 5 special winter warming drinks (in the video tutorial).
Take your old clothes and paint them, you can use them to create new interesting articles.
Look through your pictures, select the best ones and print them! You can stick them on a photo album and give it to your family, friends or even keep it for yourself.
There are many websites online where you can personalize items such as mugs, boxes and even cards!
Buy the skeleton of a wreath so that you can decorate it with whatever you want leaves, flowers, berries, pines...
Make your own homemade candle! You may find online plenty of tips and tricks for beginners and it is a possibility to experiement with colours, parfumes, flavours and shapes. Also try to decorate them in the Christmas spirit!
Go for a walk with your family, it is always nice to breath fresh air.
Take a bicycle and go all around the lake of Varese.
Keep a gratitude journal. Each day there is something wonderful happening but sometimes we tend not to notice or to take it as something too simple. But start writing your ideas and observations, and you will notice more and more nice things happening around you everyday. Decorate, draw, attach some cuts from magazines, put on stickers, and when you look back after few days, you will realize how beautiful is your life!
And finally, when the big meal has been tasted and lots of games have been played, on your free and calm moment we invite you to read our latest article about Christmas traditions around the World. In our school there are students from 47 countries and we managed to collect particularities from 20 countries. It will be like travelling and discovering while reading. And don't forget to play videos in the article for a better impression!
Enjoy your winter break!