Family-Friendly Winter Activities to Keep Everyone Entertained

Once winter arrives, particularly if you’re in a state that experiences cold temperatures, you can gravitate from long days spent outside enjoying all day in the glorious outdoors to being cooped up indoors. However, with these family-friendly winter entertainment ideas, those frigid months don’t have to hold you back from enjoying time with your loved ones.

Check out this list of family-friendly winter activities:

Have a Movie Night

Let your little ones pick a movie or two for a fun-filled movie night, complete with popcorn. While you probably don’t have a home theater, turn your family or living room into a snug space, perfect for movie watching, with sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets, the works.

For a special touch, make homemade soda together. You can find healthy, non-caffeinated options online.

If your first night is a hit, this can become your Friday or Saturday ritual throughout the winter.

Schedule a Weekend Getaway

Vacations aren’t reserved for summer only. Research places within a few hours of you to have a mini vacation. Consider staying at an indoor waterpark/hotel or a nearby hotel and purchasing day passes as a cost-friendlier option.

On the other hand, just choosing a hotel with a pool gives your youngsters a taste of summer when it seems so far off. Then, choose museums, snow tubing, shopping, or other winter-friendly activities nearby to keep them occupied.

Depending on your schedule and budget, this could become a monthly activity you and your family can look forward to. This easy twist on nearby destinations can end up being seamless and stress-free!

Bake Together

You know what they say? The family who bakes together smiles together! While that might not necessarily be a saying, it’s true. Choose a recipe as a family, and create something wonderful together.

You could even make the selection process fun. Spark your child’s imagination by giving them some ideas, and remember, you can think outside the box and combine two different types of cookies or add sprinkles where sprinkles usually aren’t. The options are endless. Another option is to give your family choices and hold a secret ballot where everyone writes down their selection.

Have an Indoor Campout

Even if you aren’t the family who spends most of your summer weekends hiking in the mountains and roughing it, glamping inside is an option you’ll all love. It gives everyone a taste of summer.

If you have enough space somewhere in your home, feel free to pitch a real tent. But, if that’s not feasible, get out the blankets and make a fort in your living room. Have everyone bring a sleeping bag and a pillow, just like they would for an outdoor camping adventure.

Choose activities like making smores — either over a gas stove, or in the fireplace, oven, or air fryer, telling spooky stories, and singing campfire songs.

Have a Crafting Day

Fortunately, with the Internet at your fingertips, even the most uncrafty of parents can find activities their children can do and will adore. You can also find beginner’s kits so your little ones can learn to cross-stitch, embroider, crochet, or knit.

Or, if you’d like to let your children’s imaginations run wild for the day, make a crafting table. Put out yarn, glue, scissors, construction paper, paint, toilet paper rolls, sparkles (or not, if you’d prefer not to have a shining mess), buttons, googly eyes, and other crafting materials.

Have a Game Night

A family game night could be an activity you choose to hold once or twice weekly if well-received.

For this activity, pick a board or card game that every family member can play. If you have kids with quite an age gap, the littlest ones could always pair up with the older ones.

Charades, Simon says, hangman, or guess the drawing requires little to no resources if you’re looking for a game you don’t have without adding to the collection.

You can also find several word puzzles and board games available in video-game format or opt for a virtual racing package that everyone can try their hands at. Moreover, dancing and sports games are ways to get your whole family moving for the day.

To make these nights memorable, you could always put treats in the mix for the family to share or as prizes for the winners. If you opt for making the snack a prize, make sure to have something else for the losers, that way, the night is memorable and enjoyable for everyone.

Shop Online Together

Have an online shopping day! Let each kid pick something from a website. Getting something through the mail, even if it’s something small, is always exciting for a child. It’s like getting a random present just for being them.

And if you’re the mommy or would like to treat her to something special, too, you could opt for a final sale website to remain within budget while still finding something spectacular as a treat.

Have a Reading and Cocoa Day

Let everyone create their own cozy reading space, and choose a book. It’s the perfect excuse to stay in jammies all day and schedule a library trip beforehand.

If you have kids who aren’t old enough to read, you could make it so every member of the family who can read presents a children’s book, complete with animated voices, costumes, etc.

For a bonus for your reading day, make hot cocoa — homemade even.

Bundle Up and Go for a Walk

Being confined indoors can get to the utmost of homebodies. So, bundle everybody up and go for a walk. Everyone is getting exercise and fresh air, and it’s a perfect time to talk or sing seasonal songs.

And if you’re the more adventurous type of family, you could walk or hike somewhere besides your community to explore new places.

Have a Scavenger Hunt

The Internet has a wealth of options for already put-together indoor scavenger hunts, but you could choose to get creative and write clues for your kids to follow. In the end, the last clue could be something special for the whole family to enjoy, such as hot cocoa, caramel popcorn, chocolate-covered pretzels, or a baking or cooking activity.

Rather than everybody hibernating alone and spending the winter wrapped up with an electronic gadget, get your entire family together for activities to make this season memorable. Fortunately, there are options for all budgets and family sizes! And who knows? These ideas may stimulate you to come up with some of your own.

Do you have other family-friendly winter activities that you do?

Please share your thoughts on the above suggestions and add any of your own in the comments below.