You glance at your watch – it’s 9:05 a.m. Since waking, the kids have already made their way through three puzzles, one devastatingly messy finger-painting activity, watched an hour of YouTube, and are already “bored”.
Every parent who has experienced the December holidays with energetic toddlers and young children knows how difficult it can be to keep them entertained throughout the day (short of parking them in front of a screen for hours on end just to get a break).
The good news is that, with a little thought and planning ahead, you can make the holidays a fun and even relaxing time for the whole family without compromising your sanity or your home in the process.

Create a schedule:
Plot out each day of the holidays in rows in a spreadsheet along with columns that detail activities, meals and snacks for the day. Have a look at activity ideas further down the article for inspiration.
This may sound like quite a chore, but planning out each day this way, or at least having a general idea of what each day will look like, removes a great deal of stress for parents, and even helps with grocery shopping ahead of the holidays to avoid long queues and crowds at stores in December.

Activity ideas
Messy play – often considered a parent’s worst nightmare at clean-up time, messy play activities allow kids to explore their creativity and imaginations, learn new textures and engage their senses through open-ended play with various materials.
Create a few sensory bins that are bound to keep the kids busy for a little while (use taste-safe and edible items for babies and toddlers, and be sure to supervise):
Add food colouring to a plastic basin of water and throw in a few slices of lemon, which the kids can pick up with spoons, ladles or spades.
Make jelly in different colours – you can use gelatine or agar-agar with a few drops of food colouring in to avoid the sugar-filled jelly available at stores. Slices them into squares and dump them in a large container for little ones.
Grab a few cheap plastic animal figurines (or use whatever mini toys the kids have lying around to save money), throw them in a silicon cupcake tray mould with water and freeze. Let the kids play “animal rescue” with plastic disposable syringes (remove the needles) that they can fill with warm water and drop over the ice moulds.

For parents who love the fun but hate the mess, set up a dedicated messy play area in the garden where clean up (including cleaning the kids) will be much easier. If that’s not an option, consider laying down sheets of newspaper, a large tarp of even black plastic bags with the edges slit open and taped down to protect your floors and furniture. Once the fun is done, simply fold it all up and dump it directly in the trash.

Build LEGO® bricks – If there’s any activity that has proven just as fun for kids as it is for adults, building with LEGO bricks is the one. For children, it’s an opportunity to unleash their creativity and bring the whacky and wonderful ideas that live in their heads to life. For parents, it’s a trip down memory lane, or just an equally fun time having the chance to build and break apart like a kid again.

Playing with LEGO® bricks is also a great way to spend time together and bond as a family, and even get to know your kids a little better.
Come up with a fun story together and use LEGO pieces to build and play out the scenes.
Host an art exhibition where each member of the family has to create a unique LEGO creation and showcase it to everyone.
Go all out and create a LEGO city right in your living room, complete with roads made from gift wrapping, cardboard signs, and toy cars to create the ‘holiday traffic’.

For parents who need a little time to themselves to enjoy a cuppa, LEGO plays is also a fantastic way to encourage and foster independent play as well as social play with siblings or friends. Give them a theme and countdown timer to build their own creation or create an idea jar filled with LEGO build ideas that they can tackle on their own, while you sit back and watch from the couch or get a few chores out of the way.
Other great ideas to include in activity calendars are:

Holiday-themed scavenger hunts – create clue cards kids can use to find a range of festive items, like mini wrapped presents, cookies, and other festive items around the garden or the house.
Create a cinema experience – grab all the pillows in the house, let kids choose a movie and snacks, and get cozy in front the TV for a movie marathon.
Create a special holiday reading nook – have a dedicated area with books for the whole family and comfy seating where everyone can spend some quiet time.
Get some exercise – find a fun family workout video to follow online, get dressed up in the whackiest workout gear you can find, and get sweating – don’t forget to take pictures for memories later on!

Surviving the December holidays isn’t all that difficult or nearly as impossible as you thought, right? With a little planning and organising ahead, you can save your sanity and even enjoy a well-deserved break as a family this festive season.