10 Ideas for Christmas Break for the Children

Ideas

1. Make a list of people who are hurting over loss in your family, friend group, church family, or community. Pray for them. If possible, do something to serve them.
2. Make a list of people who are shut-ins in your family, friend group, or church family. Pray for them. Send them a note, a homemade card, or a text to let them know you are thinking of them. If possible, call one or two of them on speaker phone so that you can help with the conversation, or go by and pay a visit.
3. Make a gratitude list of things he or she is grateful for this Christmas (shoot for 10). Part 2 could be people (10 more). Part 3 could be about God (10 more). This can be done with you verbally and the child could write it out as you go through them.
4. Take your church’s list of missionaries and pray for them individually. If you can contact one of them on social media – perfect! If not, tell each other what you know about them, their country, their ministry, and the importance of what missionaries do in life with the Gospel. This is an excellent time to discuss the importance of the Gospel for salvation for the child, friends, family, and all the people in the world.
5. Read a book
6. Go for a walk with a parent, trusted friend, or sibling. You could go to a local park as well when the weather is nice enough. Invite a friend or friends over to play outside.
7. Stop by your church and walk around outside to pick up trash, pull a weed, and pray while you do these things. For younger children, help them and talk about what to pray for with them. Pray for your church family, ask God to help you and your church reach people, and take some time to praise God as well.
8. Play a game together while electronics are turned off, left in the other room, or otherwise out of the way. If the TV is on, turn it down or play music instead. (Here is the link for a Christmas Bible Trivia game I wrote this week.)
9. Bake or make something together in the kitchen.
10. Make a donation. One idea is to take food to a local food bank. The children could help you sort through some stuff in their rooms, their clothes, or the garage to see what could be donated to the Disabled Vets, Salvation Army, or some other community help organization. Or, take the children and buy non-slip socks to donate to your local senior center or nursing home. You could also donate gloves and scarves to your local senior center. The children could go with you to pick them out.

Bonus: If Grandparents or older relatives live nearby, take the children over to do a small project with them, look at old family pictures together, or something fun. Ask their favorite songs when they were younger. Possibly listen to them on Spotify together. Ask the year they were born and look up fun stuff from that year.

Do you have some more ideas?

Please leave your ideas or your stories of doing one of these in the comments or on Facebook. I’d love to hear your ideas and/or your experience doing these things. Of course other ideas include watching a movie together while eating popcorn, watching sports, playing outside together, and driving around looking at Christmas lights. What else?