Christmas is described as a festive season therefore we should all engage in activities during the season that provide entertainment, merriment and which give pleasure. Because Christmas is about celebration, many types of festivities can be found to suit all preferences to make the season a joyful one.

A readily available option is watching Christmas movies. This can be done from the comfort of home or by spending a few hours out at the theater. A wonderful option now available for obtaining movies is to rent them via the Internet. It’s an option that allows you to get any movie you want to see – whether traditional, popular or a remake of an original title. There’s also fairly easy access to obscure movie titles, as well as movies with holiday or Christmas themes.

Although Christmas movies embody the spirit of the season, you can also take time out during Christmas to enjoy new releases that may or may not have a holiday theme. Christmas is a good time to catch notable new releases because they are  timed to be shown in theaters before the end of the year to be considered for prestigious Oscar nominations.

Performances of Christmas plays that depict the Nativity scene are also another popular entertainment during Christmas. Although these performances are done year after year, they never grow old because of creative difference in interpreting the story, and also in how each role is acted by different actors every year.

The dramatization of the Nativity demonstrates the meaning of Christmas and can also simplify the meaning of Christmas for children. Participation in the Nativity is also an important activity for children in drama groups at schools and church groups.  Along with depicting the meaning of Christmas, the Nativity play also portrays moral lessons that can serve as an inspiration for the way to become a more spiritual person and to live a better life. Watching or taking part in the Nativity play at Christmas time can therefore affect your attitude and outlook on life.

Musical entertainment at Christmas can come from pausing during shopping to listen to a choral group at the mall or downtown. It can also be entertaining to simply hum along to a Christmas carol or song being played on the radio. Carols as a tradition at Christmas is said to originate in England and France in the Middle Ages. At the time, carols were dances accompanied by singing. The tradition that Anglo-Saxons preferred was to have small choirs gather on the village green and sing carols and Christmas songs to passersby. Over time, the meaning of the word changed to refer to only certain types of songs. The tradition of carols is also believed to evolve from the angels, shepherds and Wise Men who bowed down to sing praises and to worship Baby Jesus.

For those who are really lovers of the arts, professional groups like Orchestras, Symphonies, Conservatories and Choirs also offer splendid concerts during Christmas. They will also sing Christmas carols and songs. But the harmony of their voices accompanied by a full compliment of instruments provides a richer and more melodious rendition of the carols that is unlikely to be heard anywhere else.

Probably the most popular festivities at Christmas are parties, which seem to happen everywhere all the time at Christmas. There are parties at work, home, with friends and class parties at school. Even social hubs such as bars may have special nights with different food and lower-priced drinks during Christmas.

It seems there is no end to the festivities during Christmas. It’s always important however to have a good time, to remember the unfortunate and to reach out to them and to have fun but in a responsible manner.

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Just because you’re stuck in an office all day doesn’t mean Christmas fun can’t extend to your workplace. Depending on the environment at your work, it’s definitely possible to mix holiday fun with work.

One obvious choice for some fun at the office during the holidays is to have a party. You could have several, in fact. How about a cookie exchange party? Plan to do this at lunchtime one day, and during that block of time, everyone brings several dozen cookies they have made. You have to set a particular number of cookies everyone brings. Because once everyone has an empty plate, they go around the table picking up cookies that look good to them and place them on their empty paper plate. If everyone brought 3 dozen cookies, say, then everyone gets to take home 3 dozen cookies. This is not a particularly unique idea, but one that brings a bit of fun into the workplace.

Keeping in mind whether or not the public visits your workplace, you might choose to decorate. Why not have a Christmas tree decorating event? Everyone brings 6 ornaments and as a group activity, everyone decorates the tree. This is a good way to build team spirit and decorate your workplace at the same time.

Don’t forget to institute a “secret Santa” event at work, where you secretly buy gifts for someone and have some type of gift exchange. But what about a “Santa’s helper” activity? Someone in the group has to begin this on the sly. Essentially, this first person (the only one in the know about how the whole thing began) puts together a little gift. Ideally, it’s a basket with a few gift items in it. They might be decorative items, or baked goods or even bath items. Attach a card saying that “Santa’s helper” dropped by and brought these items. Now the person who received the “helper’s” gift must put together a little something for someone else and – again on the sly – deliver it to the next person. It continues until everyone has received a visit from “Santa’s helper”.

Nothing brings people together like a group activity designed to help others. What if your officemates came up with an activity designed to help people less fortunate at the holidays? You might adopt a local family and everyone in the office purchases items for that family. You might choose to purchase  Christmas Gifts or food for needy families. If the public visits your office often, you might even begin a “sharing” tree and people can bring items to put under the tree for needy families or children. As a group activity, the office workers can then deliver these items to the needy.

The particularly festive office might want to have someone come in and do a cooking demonstration. If there are enough people interested, you can hire a cook or baker to come into your office on your lunch hour and do a demonstration or class. Say you want to bake but don’t know what to bake this year. A baker can come in and demonstrate cookies or other goodies you might not have thought to make. Or someone can come in with ideas and samples for the perfect Christmas meal. These ideas are perfect for the environment where people work many hours and are quite busy but still want to do their regular cooking and baking each year.

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Family is at the core of the Christmas season, so creating fun memories with your family is always at the top of the must-do list this time of year.

What fun activities can you incorporate into your family life that makes Christmas memorable and fun? Plenty, really. There are the traditional and the things a little bit out of the box.

Think back to your childhood and Christmas time in your house. Are there particular memories that are clearer than others? Those are likely the traditions your parents created for you and your siblings. Trying to create traditions in your own home with your own children is one way to make Christmas fun, exciting and memorable. Perhaps it’s decorating cookies, or making gingerbread houses. Maybe when you were younger your mom always had something yummy smelling coming from the kitchen. You can create the same tradition by simply keeping potpourri warmed and smelling nice, if you don’t have the time to bake frequently.

If you want to do a fun family activity in the kitchen, but baking’s not your thing, you can make a variety of other gift items in your kitchen. The kids love making chocolate and candy covered pretzel sticks, and you can pair those with homemade hot cocoa mix to give as gifts.

Be sure to incorporate music into your family’s traditions. How about some family fun singing Christmas carols or creating your own family music CD? Record your family singing Christmas carols and use that CD as your music CD for the holidays. If you all are particularly talented, you could make these look pretty and give them as gifts.

Many families like to cut down their own Christmas tree. This is a really fun family activity that can add a lot to the Christmas season. Christmas tree farms are located just about everywhere. Check into a local grower’s group for locations. You simply show up, grab a saw (this is mom or dad’s job) and go hunting. Depending on the location of the tree farm, you might walk only a short distance, or you might have to hike up and down hills and far into the farm’s reaches to find just the right tree.

To add even more fun to this activity, create another family tradition that will annually go with the tree cutting. It can be as simple as also having lunch (at the same place each year) and picking up candy to eat in the car on the way home. You might also add a shopping excursion to the day; after the tree is safe at home in a bucket of water, you might all go shopping as a family for some new ornaments.

Other fun family activities can include annual visits to certain places in your community. Does your town have an annual “Christmas tree lane” where all the homes on one street decorate (sometimes in an over the top fashion) for the holidays? You can make a tradition of driving down the street each year, or walking the entire street, if the weather allows. Walking gives the kids a chance to see some of the details of the various décor items.

Many children think hot cocoa is an essential part of the Christmas season. If that’s the case with yours, you could start a fun family activity each year where you make a big batch of hot cocoa mix at the start of the season. Let the kids have a small cup each night before bed during the month of December and closer to Christmas, add special items to the hot cocoa, like mini marshmallows one night and whipped cream another. Be sure to leave this family-made hot cocoa for Santa on Christmas Eve!

At a certain age, children enjoy decorating their room for the holidays. One fun family Christmas activity is to encourage this decoration by letting the kids shop for items to put in their rooms and letting them do the decorating. Be sure to take a picture of them in their decorated room each year. They’ll enjoy looking at the pictures year after year.

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Many public schools don’t allow gift exchanges during the Christmas season, but some do and certainly many private schools do. Many fun games can be created to make the gift exchange really fun and festive for kids.

There are several activities you can impose to make the gift buying interesting. For example, you can declare that one of the rules of the gift exchange is that gifts must be handmade or put together in some way and not purchased. You can take this a step further by declaring that the gifts feature the school’s colors in abundance. Perhaps they might also somehow incorporate the school’s mascot.

Definitely in a Christmas gift exchange with children, there should be a low dollar limit on the gifts (such at $5).

But once the Christmas gifts are ready, there are many fun exchange activities and games that can be used to make this even fun and memorable for the kids.

You can use a “white elephant” gift exchange method; here the kids draw a number and choose their gift from the pile of Christmas gifts in order by the number they drew. They can exchange their gift for a different one if they choose. A gift can only be “stolen” three times and the person who drew the first gift can “steal” a gift at the end of the gift exchange if they like. Kids always get a kick out of the “stealing” aspect of the white elephant gift exchange.

Children enjoy buying gifts for other people, so having them draw names is an excellent activity for an exchange. To add a twist, make the gift activity interesting by telling the children they can’t tell their recipient they are buying for them. Then create a fun activity during the exchange itself to play up the “mystery” element of the Christmas gift exchange.

In the mystery scenario, you can have each child open their Christmas gift, then try and figure out who it is from. If the children were asked to make a gift, this can be particularly fun, as some children might have drawing skills, or woodworking skills which might make it easier or harder for the other children to decide who have them a gift.

As the children open the gifts, have them guess who the gift is from. If they are wrong, they have to do a little dance or silly physical act before making another guess. This repeats until they guess the right giver of the gift they have been given.

Another fun activity for gift giving among children in a classroom is to have each child make a game piece for an unknown game board. Everyone brings a handcrafted game piece (there can be rules as to its size, for example, no larger than 2 inches high), to play with on the communal game board.

The “game board” can be nothing more than a large rug that’s been fashioned into some sort of game, ideally a Christmas-themed game. Always popular is “get Santa back to the North Pole” played much like Chutes and Ladders or Candyland. Since most children know how to play these games, the learning curve is small and at the Christmas party, they can get to playing right away. To keep with the Christmas gift exchange idea, each child can be asked to bring their handcrafted game piece wrapped and the pieces can be exchanged as gifts before everyone plays on the big game board.

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There are dozens of fun office gift exchange games people can play during the Christmas season. Officemates might have a “secret Santa” gift exchange or a popular “white elephant” gift exchange. All are popular and always fun, provided the rules are clear and everyone understands them.

One of the most popular office games involving Christmas gifts is the “white elephant” gift exchange. The rules can vary depending on the office and participants, but generally it works something like this. Each person participating purchases a gift not to exceed a certain dollar amount (determined in advance and might range from $5 to $20, again depending on the group). The object here is a fun gift, so anything particularly practical is not welcome. You’re looking for unusual and interesting, perhaps funny, and something other people will want.

Everyone who’s participating in the exchange gets a number (the number should be the same as the number of presents). The numbers should be they drawn out of a hat or something else (perhaps a Santa hat, in recognition of the season?). So, the person who draws number “1″ goes first and picks a present. They open it and keep it. The second person can either pick a different present or they can “steal” the first present. They can’t open a present until they are sure they are keeping their choice and not picking the first gift. This continues until everyone has a present. Any present that’s been opened can be subject to stealing, but a gift can only be stolen three times.

At the end of the game, the person who was the first to open a present can steal a gift if they choose, since they didn’t have an opportunity earlier.

In this game there’s always one gift that everyone wants and will steal over and over again. What makes it fun is trying to figure out who is going to get the most coveted gift. In some cases, people can end up with the gift they brought.

Originally the “white elephant” gift exchange was a way for people to “regift” or give someone a gift they themselves received and don’t want. For a fun twist, you could ask people to bring something from their home like that, or you can require they purchase something (with the aforementioned limit on spending).

There are many varieties of the Secret Santa game, which is so popular in offices, but one option that’s fun involves putting a dollar limit on the purchase and having participants actually make “Santa lists”. Here’s how it works: Those participating create a little list for “Santa”. There should also be a dollar limit placed on this gift exchange, so if that is $10, then people should only list items on their Santa list that can be purchased for $10 or less.

Everyone who is participating draws a list out of a hat, or some other object, and sets about shopping for that person. They know who they are shopping for, but the recipient doesn’t. On exchange day, the Secret Santas must deliver the gifts to their officemates’ desks without being seen. Those participating can decide if they want people to sign the cards attached to the gifts, or if the secret should stay a secret. If they choose the latter, gift giving can be interesting, since it’s anonymous, but many people choose to have cards signed so in the end, people who to thank for their gifts.

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Advent Calendars

During the weeks leading up to Christmas many families celebrate the anticipation of the holiday with an Advent Calendar. There are many ways to make your own Advent Calendar and it is a fun family project designing and putting it together. Here are some simple calendar ideas to get your started.

The word advent means “arrival” and the calendar is a good way for families to count down the days until the big celebration day arrives. There are many ways to make an advent calendar each having its own special way of rewarding little ones for their patience.

There are many printable templates that you can find online to guide you in your calendar design. You can make an advent wreath made with handprints, or make an  advent jar or tree.

Advent Wreath

Supplies you will need:

Construction Paper
Glue
Markers, crayons or paint
Paper Plate
Pencil

What to do:

Step #1 – Make a wreath out of the paper plate by cutting out the center of the plate.

Step #2 – Have your child put a hand on a green piece of construction paper and trace his entire hand and fingers with a pencil.

Step #3 – Cut out the hand and then use it to trace 23 more on green construction paper so you have 24 hands alltogether.

Step #4 – Now with a dark colored marker write a good deed on each handprint. (if young children will be participating make sure the deeds are within their ability to complete).

Step #5 – Starting on December 1st., pick one cut-out hand for the entire family to do that day. Example: the good deed is to say something nice about someone else. Each family member needs to do this at least once that day.

At the end of the day a family member will glue the handprint onto the wreath

When all 24 handprints are on the wreath you will have something to be proud of and a beautiful decoration for your home.

Advent Jar – (Special Blessings)

Supplies you will need:

Large Jar (glass or plastic)

Christmas themed stickers or other decorations

Construction Paper

Markers or Crayons

Use 24 themed stickers or other holiday small decorations, or you can have your little ones make some of their own decorations. You can do a combination of these suggestions too. Just make sure that you end up with 24 all together.

What to do:

Step #1 – Take a black marker and write a one-word blessing on each decoration. You an go round-robin with family members (the ones old enough) for blessing suggestions. You can also add one person’s name on each decoration.

Step #2 – Place all 24 decoration inside of the jar.

Step #3 – On December 1st a lucky family member gets to draw a decoration out of the jar and glue it to the outside of the jar. What ever one word blessing is written on the paper is what family members will be giving thanks for that day. If you chose to write a person’s name on the decoration, than each family member should think good thoughts about that person all day.

Step #4 – On Christmas eve the jar will be empty but the outside will be decorated with blessings and family members will be rewarded for their good thoughts when someone fills the empty jar with yummy holiday treats.

Advent Christmas Tree

Supplies you will need:

Felt – green

Felt – Assortment of brightly colored

Tracing Paper

Self-adhesive Velcro Circles

What you need to do:

Step #1 – Draw a Christmas Tree on thin tracing paper or use a pattern from the internet or a book you might find on Christmas crafts.

Step #2 – Pin the tracing paper onto the felt (green), and cut out the shape of the tree.

Step #3 – Cut out ornament shapes out of the brightly colored felt (freehand or use a pattern from the internet or a Christmas craft book). You will need 24 ornaments.

Step #4 – Stick the prickly half of the Velcro circles all over the tree where you will be placing the ornaments.

Step #5 – Now, stick the other half of each Velcro circle on each of the ornaments.

Step #6 – Starting with December 1, you “hang” an ornament on your advent tree by sticking an ornament onto the tree where you placed the prickly parts of the Velcro circles. Hang one ornament each day. They will all be hung by Christmas Eve and you will have a beautifully decorated felt advent tree.

If you do not have the needed supplies you can use construction paper for the tree and ornaments and attach the ornaments to the tree with glue or tape.

Find out more about the Playmobil Advent Calendars and Christmas Playsets past and present here

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Many families are facing financial crunches this year, with job layoffs, skyrocketing costs of gasoline, and the general all around increase in the cost of living. It is important to continue to give children the wonder and enjoyment of the holidays even when budgets scream to skimp. There are plenty of ways to bring holiday cheer to your home and not spend a lot of the green stuff. Here are some simple holiday pleasures to get your creative juices flowing.

Make use of holiday craft ideas to decorate your home, make homemade gift-wrap and also to make homemade presents. Learn a new skill like sewing, crocheting or knitting so that you can make homemade gifts. Bead making is another popular craft that is ideal for presents.

Sometimes you can discover a gift idea that your child really wants, that is within your budget such as an item that they are collecting, or a kit that they can make. Elementary school aged kids are especially into collecting and kit making.

Take advantage of free holiday programs your community may be sponsoring this season. Parks, zoos and nature centers will often times have special holiday programs that are free to attend or participate in. Make sure you pick up community flyers and notices.

Kids love to do family activities together, especially during the holidays. Do activities like having a “cookie factory” day. A cookie factory day is when you purchase cooking fixins ahead of time, have you recipes ready and then designate a Saturday for all family members to gather around the kitchen table to make several batches of holiday cookies. Its fun to bake cookies together and afterwards you can set aside a plateful of cookies to munch with hot cocoa in front of a holiday TV program.

A great holiday tradition around here is to go Christmas caroling around the neighborhood. You can also go to a community nursing or residential home and sing carols there. The elderly are often lonely during the holidays and would love to have visitors sing Christmas songs to them.

Take some time during the holidays to help out those less fortunate then you by volunteering at a community soup kitchen, homeless shelter, or other needy project. You may consider asking your local hospital for individuals that may need to have some cheering up and visit those in the hospitals who may be away from home or whom are without relatives.

Remember your furry friends during the holidays and visit animal shelters bringing with you extra blankets or little chew toys. Sometimes you can volunteer to walk the dogs there or play with the animals in cages that need exercising.

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