The Holiday Decorating!

With the holidays nipping at our heels, we know that the time of family togetherness is right around the corner…paired the pains of cooking, decorating, and cleaning. Creating a fun atmosphere for a family to work with and grow together will help promote the holiday spirit as well as cut the amount of work in half.

Begin by looking at the following list. Take the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your middle name and take the corresponding word from the list. This will serve as your name for the duration of the decorating and holiday work. A-Elf B-Wreath C-Big Beard D-Frosty F-Snowman G-Blitzen H-Eggnog I-Igloo J-Rudolph K-Snowflake L-Christmas Ham M-Pecan Pie N-Merry O-Star P-Ring-a-Ling Q-Jingle Bells R-Snowpants S-Mitten T-Fruit Cake U-Stocking V-Ornament W-Mistletoe X-Wise Man Y-Yuletide Z-Twinkle For example, if your name is Mary Jane, your holiday name would be Pecan Pie Rudolph.

If your name is Peter Paul, you holiday name would be Ring-a-Ling Ring-a-Ling (that’s a mouthful!) Now grab a roll of stickers and divide them up to each member of the family. This activity can get interesting with big stickers or stickers with funny sayings.Have each person write their new name on a slip of paper and place it in a hat. Write the chores on different slips of paper (decorating the tree, hanging the stockings, etc.) Alternate pulling names and chores until everyone has a task at hand. If you have more chores than people, your family members may need to pull more than one chore. For the duration of the holiday festivities, each person must be called by their new name. Anytime a person is addressed by the wrong name or is not called by a name at all, the person they are trying to talk to gets to stick a sticker on them anywhere.

This can get extremely silly as stickers end up on noses, cheeks, buttocks, etc. You may need to place some ground rules with younger children as to where it is okay and not okay to stick a sticker. By the end of all of the holiday festivities, you should be pretty stickered up and laughing alot. The person with the most stickers has to perform a goofy task like creating a Christmas skit or by doing a task that no one else wants to do like cleaning the oven. This activity can be varied up by creating new name lists or by adding different activities to be completed.

You may want to add craft activities to the mix for younger children. These craft activities can range from creating and coloring Christmas signs to creating Christmas ornaments. Encourage them to do as much as they can and praise them for trying. Activities such as the one described above are really useful to help create a fun environment. Pulling tasks from a hat helps eliminate or reduce the amount of arguments that may occur when fighting over desired tasks or trying to avoid less wanted activities. Have fun!