Holidays are looking different this year for everyone. With public health officials encouraging people to not travel for the holidays, this has put many people in a tough position. Everyone wants to see their family this time of the year, but how can we do it safely? Here are a few ideas of how to incorporate your family safely into your holiday plans.
- Zoom & Family Kahoot
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This is an idea I got from our very own event director for Her Campus ISU, Lynn. We did this idea as a bonding event! You can make the kahoot whatever theme you want. A fun one would be trivia about the family, or maybe holiday trivia about movies. One person creates a google form for everyone to enter questions with the correct answer. This way everyone is included, and you get a variety of questions. Then, the person who made the google form creates the kahoot. Tell everyone to download the kahoot app on their phone, and make sure everyone is able to zoom. On the night of the event, everyone jumps on zoom. The “creator” shares their screen with the kahoot, everyone enters the code into their kahoot app, and you all play. You can chat and laugh while remembering or learning fun things.
- Cookie Exchange
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A cookie or dessert exchange is popular for holidays. Every person or family makes a certain amount of one kind of cookie, and everyone ends up with several kinds of treats. If you aren’t physically meeting up with your family, there are a few different ways you can go about this. You can ship cookies to your family members. This is especially good for out of state family members. If your family lives close, you can do a “sprinkle” and leave cookies on your family members porch.
- Socially Distanced Christmas Lights Walk
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One of the safer ways to interact with family is to do so outside, with a mask. A wonderful part of Christmas is looking at the decorations and lights on everyone’s houses. This is a great activity to do with your family or friends that you can do while following CDC guidelines. Bundle up, put on a mask, and stay six feet apart while taking in the gorgeous lights.
- Christmas Card Exchange
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Sending Christmas cards is not a new thing, obviously. However, if you’re like me, you don’t always get around to sending out a nice card to everyone you love every year. This is a good year to make sure you DO. Even better, coordinate with your family and friends. Tell them you would love to send AND receive cards because you can not see eachother in person.
- Secret Santa
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Secret santa is such a fun way for everyone to get a gift, while no one has to break the bank. The beauty is that you only have to buy a gift for one person. There are great apps that allow you to enter the emails of everyone particpating, and pair people anonymously. Set a budget that is comfortable for everyone, and ship or drop off the gifts on your person’s front porch. You can either text in a groupchat about who you think was your Secret Santa, or once everyone has received their gift you can zoom while opening them. That way you can do the classic guessing game as if you were all together.
Family and friends are important to keep in touch with for your sanity, especially when holidays come around. Hopefully this list gave you something you can do or sparked an idea for something else you can do with your loved ones during this hard time.
Happy Holidays!