When I heard “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” for the first time this year, one line stood out like never before: “And Mum and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.” So far, this line had never been relevant, but with my two kids now in nursery and kindergarten, the Christmas break is truly a break from those institutions, and while lolling around and playing and relaxing is great, being with them all day every day again with no break certainly comes with its challenges.

I’m slowly starting to feel my patience wearing a little thinner and finding excuses to lock myself into the bathroom for a minute or two (my bladder training was all for nil). And yet, being with the kids, playing, having time, it’s great and I want to enjoy it and not “hardly wait for school to start again.” In order to do so, I’ve compiled a list of activities to enjoy this time to the fullest. As I started working again in September, it’s also my first Christmas break from work, and I’m enjoying that very much, so I thought about how to make the most of the season. I am aware that I’m not reinventing the wheel here, but it helps me refocus on what is possible and narrow down the options.

Do As Many Outdoor Activities As Possible

This year we had a magical Christmas. For the first time in forever, we had a white Christmas with fresh snow. Also the subsequent days have been cold, wintery and snowy. On Christmas Day, we went for a great walk and today we went sledding. The fresh air and snow are invigorating and the kids will be super-tired in the evening. While building a snowman has not been possible so far because the snow is so powdery, it’s definitely on the list. Last winter we built one that melted so slowly, it started tilting awkwardly.

If you live somewhere without snow, going out in the cold and looking for fairies (which is what I do to motivate my kids to get out) is also really nice.

Bake a Wintery Cake

Just before Christmas, I got very stressed about needing to bake a Christmassy cake. In the end, I made a spiced biscuit tiramisu for Christmas Eve, as I can prepare it the day before and it barely takes any space in the fridge.

However, I realised you don’t just have to bake for Christmas. Making a nice winter-themed cake can be a perfect activity with your kids beyond cookie-baking. You can invite people for a nice Hygge afternoon and serve it. Some of my friends do Veganuary every year, and while I say “good for them”, I feel January is the worst month to limit yourself in your food choices. So dark and cold, it’s a very depressing month for many, so why not cheer it up with hot chocolates, nice cake and leftover Christmas cookies? The lent period will come quickly enough, that’s when I have my sugar-free, as animal-product-reduced as possible time.

You can find recipes for wintery cakes here on the BBC website, for example, and I also really like the recipes of Manon LaGrève in her baking book Et Voila, where you find a recipe for a Bûche de Noel, a French Christmas cake.

My favourite cakes to make are a cinnamon star biscuit cake, which is my husband’s favourite. You can find the recipe here. It was also the base for my Christmas cake last year (on the left).

And if you have little children like I do, you might want to get more creative and try out something fun, even if it’s not wintery. I’ve made my son a train and tractor cake, which were from the same recipe (it’s in German though, but you find many other great recipes in English, too). This way, they can help decorate, and even though it might be a mess, it’s lots of fun and delicious.

One final inspiration for a cake could be a New Year’s Eve cake, it looks great and is soooo easy. You simply make brownies in a large cake tin and cut out the letters for this year. I made it in 2022 and it was a great hit. For the cream, you simply blend mascarpone and icing sugar with a little bit of cream. It’s the easiest cake ever, but has a great effect. Decorated with amarena cherries and chocolate flakes, it gets a Black Forest Gateau vibe.

Have A Read-A-Thon

In our family, we love books. But I often feel I don’t have enough time to read with the kids. It’s always a book each at bedtime, but on some days, that’s about it. Especially around Christmas time, when it’s cold outside, it’s the perfect time to curl up on the sofa and read together. At four, Lily is really invested in letters and numbers, so reading together regularly is particularly important. We have a few Christmas books we only read at Christmas time, and we love them. Not all are in English, but picture books that have really made our kids come back and back again to read them are:

1. The Nutcracker (we have an edition with Tchaikovsky’s music playing, it’s in German, though)
2. Can You Find Santa’s Pants by Becky Davies
3. It’s Christmas by Tracey Corderoy and Tim Warnes
4. The Snowiest Christmas Ever by Jane Chapman
5. The Perfect Present by Stella J Jones and Caroline Pedler
6. The Christmas Pine by Julia Donaldson
7. One Magical Christmas by Alice Wood

This year I also bought a compilation with Christmas stories, which we’ve loved reading. It’s called Little Golden Book Christmas Stories and it’s also beautiful to look at and put in a shelf.

What makes this Read-A-Thon a great activity is you can do it when you’re tired or sick as well. And, at least with my kids, they then ease into reading and at some point I get my own book and read while they look at their own books or play independently, their mama-needs filled.

Do a Christmas (Morning) Basket

A year ago I stumbled upon a woman on Instagram who makes booklets of crafting activities you can buy off her website. While, arguably, you could also compile your own booklet of activities for free, I loved just printing them off and giving them to my kids without having to do all the work myself. The woman’s name is Lauren Carlson and you can find her on Instagram by clicking here. Her brand goes under Joy of Creative Play. On her page, you will find the link to her booklets. But she doesn’t only do the booklets, she has them as parts of her “morning basket”, where the booklet is put into a basket together with glue, scissors, stickers, dot markers, etc. to give the children a crafting basket which they can do independently and together with you.

This year I bought the Christmas morning basket booklet, and it hasn’t let us down. She offers a religious and non-religious one and we opted for the latter. It’s 65 pages of activities you can do together, and we’ve spent some lovely hours crafting and painting with this. Especially if you once go through the trouble of putting everything you need in a basket, you can grab it at any time and have everything you need. It’s really a game-changer. Below you see a short video of what I put in my Easter basket last year.

Dust Off Your Games

Jakob and I loved playing games pre-kids, and one of our intentions for the new year is to play more games again. However, there are some wonderful kids’ games that we love to play with our kids, despite their young age. Our favourite by far is Mein Erster Obstgarten (First Orchard game), which is by a German manufacturer and I’m not sure if it is widely known in the English-speaking diaspora, but it’s a great game. It comes with wooden fruit to sort in a basket, and you play against the sneaky raven who tries to steal all the fruit, so there are no losers (except the raven). We also love Snail’s Pace Race, which, too, is a communal game with no losers (only losing snails). Otherwise, our children love doing puzzles and it’s really meditative to do them together (you can read on why I want to play more with my kids here). But you don’t only have to play kids’ games. Kids can participate in pretty much any game if you make it team-centred and allow them to ease in and out of the game as they please.

Watch A Wholesome Movie for the Family

I am not big on letting my kids watch TV. At four and two, they still only watch once a week for an hour, max an hour and a half. I don’t feel we benefit greatly from screen time, as the kids tend to by aggressive and uncooperative afterwards, so it mostly stays off (I also mention this in my post 8 Habits that Make Parenting Easier for Me).

However, watching a movie together as a family really can add to the cosiness of the season, so we are far more lenient during the holiday season. I must say, though, that I find it very hard to find child-appropriate shows and movies for this age, especially for the entire family. Jakob and I don’t want to sit through a terrible “kid-friendly” show like Paw Patrol or Peppa Pig and roll our eyes every five seconds at the stupidity of it.

Recently, we watched Arthur Christmas, one of my favourites. However, we felt it was too long and too plot-centred for our two little ones. Big hits were Angela’s Christmas Part 1 and 2, they’re really cute. If you have any good Christmassy shows and movies to recommend, please comment below, I’d love to hear them.

And Finally…Some Things to Bear in Mind

I don’t have to clean or tidy everything to take a break. Prioritising time with my kids is key … I will remember our time together, not how much I cleaned and the laundry.

I take time for myself to re-charge my batteries: go to the gym, read by myself, take a bath, go for a winter walk by myself.

Just because it’s Christmas I can still say no to things I don’t want to do (or people I don’t want to see).

Even though it’s the Season of Cookies, I can stop eating heavy foods if I don’t feel good anymore in my body (I’m reaching that point now).

And with that … I hope you have a lovely Christmas break with your kids and a Happy New Year!

x, Anja