10 fun ways to connect with your kids in December

Happy December!

Here's a few ways to have fun with your kids this month.

• Make homemade ornaments. Use salt dough, add glue and glitter or paint to pine cones, make bead and pipe cleaner ornaments, use paint pens to decorate premade ornaments, you name it. Just spend an afternoon creating together.
• Enjoy the snow. Here in Minnesota, we already have enough snow for most winter activities. Pull the kids in a sled, go skiing or ice skating (In rinks! The ice on lakes is not frozen enough yet!), go on a winter walk looking for animal tracks or otherwise get out and enjoy the early winter beauty.

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• Make up some holiday art and deliver it together to a nursing home. The kids will enjoy getting fawned over by the residents, and the residents will love the company and cheery artwork.
• Try making fresh bread together.
• Go see a movie. Some theaters in cities like Windom have free family movies on the weekends this time of year, sponsored by downtown businesses. If money is tight and you're not near one of those theaters, go see a matinee or visit a discount theater.
• Drive around town and look at the lights. Bring a thermos of hot chocolate and play Christmas carols in the car to add to the fun.
• Make snowflake quesadillas. Let kids fold a tortilla into fourths and use clean safety scissors to cut notches to make snowflake patterns. Spread another tortilla with shredded cheese, top with the snowflake tortilla, wrap in a paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds. For a non-dairy version, spread a tortilla with peanut butter and jelly, hummus, or jam.
• Go grocery shopping for items to take to the food shelf. Even ten dollars can buy a lot of food if you aim for healthy, low cost options. Enlist the kids in helping to choose what to buy. Then drop off the donations together.
• Make treats for the birds. String popcorn, cranberries and other edible treats or make peanut butter and bird seed pine cones, and put them outside where you can watch from the window.
• Make an end of the year family video. Gather the kids and the video camera, and record a video memory of 2018. Have the kids talk about highlights of the year and their current favorite things, sing songs and otherwise record a fun memento of what they were like at this age for the future. Be sure to include parents, pets, grandparents and other loved ones too!