Looking for Christmas Eve Family Activities

My husband's family plays Dominos every Christmas Eve. All of the adults participate and it's a lot of fun. We like to drink hot chocolate and eat homemade cookies while we play. If you're interested in crafts for the kids, Micheal's has small plastic gingerbread houses that can be decorated with glitter and accessories. They could also make scented ornaments for the tree. I don't have exact amounts, but you'll need a large bottle of inexpensive cinnamon-- Sprouts or Fry's might have it cheap-- then add small amounts applesauce until it forms a claylike substance. Roll out the "dough" to about 1/4 inch thickness and use cookie cutters to get festive shapes. Poke a hole in the top so you can later attach a string to hang the ornament. Lay them out on a cooling rack to dry until hard. They usually take about a day to dry out at which point they can be painted if you want. They smell wonderful and will keep for several years.

I try to do something physical with the kids because they're so wound up and excited and have trouble sleeping.
We usually go for a walk looking at lights or find a light show, there's one in Prescott and one in Sedona.
This usually gets them pretty tired so when we come home, they go to bed without complaining and sometimes they end up sleeping in a bit later..

Hi L.,
If you have children in the family you could make raindear food. The kids think this is great! Get some oatmeal and some glitter (but take it out of the glidder container and place it in a paper bag or ziplock, because this is the magical ingredient that Santa sent to you, to help the raindear fly) Be very CARFULL with this ingredient, it makes it more real. Take out some bowls and let the kids measure and mix and help scoop in bags to take home. You sprinkle it on the front lawn or sidwalks around the house. Just make sure to go out at night and make raindear tracks to show them in the morning.:) My kids love this and I love watching the magic in their eyes.
R.

couple ideas, last year my family did ginger bread houses, Costco sells kits with everything you need to make one, it was a lot of fun for the kids to decorate, I would suggest putting the walls together fist before the family comes so they are dry and ready to be decorated. We just did one for each family.
Another thing my family did was a nativity with the kids. We just got lots of towels and bathrobes and dressed the kids up like the manger sceen. It made for some really cute pictures.

You can always sing Christmas Carols together. That is the only thing I could come up with at this point other then building Gingerbread houses and gingerbread trees. There kits at many places for these and they are very easy to make. Any how, whatever you decide to do, be sure to have fun and don't stress about it.

D.

How about putting together decorative toiletry kits to drop off at the homeless shelter the next day?

You could make mini wreaths.

At our extended family Christmas party, we always played a Christmas carol game. We went around the room, and each person had to sing the first line of a carol. If the person couldn't think of one that hadn't been sung they were "out." We kept going around the room until only one person was left as the winner. That was always my favorite game, and I often studied our Christmas song books so I could hopefully win by knowing a lot of songs.

we have been doing this since i was a single mom and we didnt have much . we go to the homeless shelter in the early afternoon and help set up and serve dinner to the homless. then we come home and everyone makes something for our dinner. thankfully we arent so poor anymore and ever since i becaem a nurse, witha good job, we have been making a prime rib dinner. i make the roast, one of the kids makes potatoes and the other makes pies or bread. i usually make everything else, we dont let my new husband cook though so he cleans up ( long story). we time it so our dinner is actullay ready around 10 or 11. in the meantime we play board games. when we were poor we used to paly a lot of board games and now they usually sit in a closet shelf until christmas. the kids, now 30 and 18 and whatever friends they drag home, and my 5 adopted suns act like the games are brand new presents when they pull out the old games. each one of us has a favorite, usually the one we always win at. we play parchesi, chinese checkers, trivia pursuit. we have added new games every few years. my favorite is wheel of fortune and scrabble. then we eat and after dinner its dominoes and poker. before we know it the sun is coming up and although some of us have dropped out and dozed off on the couches, you dont dare go to bed. anyone that goes to bed is fair game for tricks. either shaving crea on the face or makeup or marker drawings ont he face to having a leg tied to the bed. around six , santa comes and we open presents, make pancakes and then go to bed.

I can't think of any specific ideas off the top of my head, but my resource for crafts, games and all around fun ideas is www.familyfun.com they have all kind of inspiration for all the holiday and party ideas that you can think of.

Hey! We usually do the same thing! Our activity is usually pretty simple. I stuck name tags on everyone's back last time that had a name of a famous Christmas character...everything from the Grinch to Mary. Each player could ask only yes or no questions about their character and once they'd guessed it they could move their tag to the front. It took just the right amount of time for me to finish getting my salad bar layed out and kept everyone from munching on the croutons while I got ready.

Making ornaments could be a fun activity. If they are simple enough, each person could make enough to put one on each tree. For really young kids, just making a tin foil ball and rolling it in glue and glitter is fun. Another kind we have done in the past is good for an assortment of ages. Buy the satin covered ornaments(make sure you can stick pins in them) or some styrofoam balls. Then get ribbons and sequins to pin onto the balls. This year, I will be cutting aluminum cans into strips, then the kids can twist them into tinsel. Anything goes!

Welcome to the life of retirement and enjoy. Your days fill up fast. Here is a fun activity your family might enjoy. A week or so before the dinner have everyone write something personal about themselves. Something that most of the family may not know. Collect all of them and put them together in a containter. After your part of the meal read the responses and have the family guess who it is. (Make sure everyone write their response on plain white paper)

L. Hi we have a family tradition of after christmas eve dinner we put the kids in pajamas and slippers pack everyone in our suburban or rent a van or you could even make it real special and rent a limo for three hours and go what we call ooooooing and aweiiinngg (looking at christmas lights now we plan our trip ahead of time so we know where we are going and sing christmas carols the whole time. The area of moon valley has contests on which house is decorated the best. several churches put on drive through light shows. so you dont even have to get out of the car. the ones in my area phoenix arizona have houses that do their complete inside as well as outside and except donations. pretty incredible. Some years we get our tractors out and hook up a trailer and just do our neighborhood and throw candy canes at kids while singing christmas carols so much fun and the kids love it! such memories good luck!!!!!!!!!! The fun is in the journey not the destination!!!!!!!!

Why dont you try going to Church, Calvary has a wonderful Christmas eve service. Its a wonderful place to take your family and be in the LORDS house.

L.,

Happy to hear you are enjoying retirement and God bless you for being part of our education system. A giving idea that everyone could do is write a letter to the troops. So many of them are away from their families during this time of year and "letters from home" can help cheer them up and keep them going mentally and emotionally.

I don't know of the exact websites but I know there are many available where you can write letters to soldiers expressing appreciation and then mail them to the foundation and they get them to the troops overseas.

God bless and happy holidays.

L.