Deciding what to do with teens and tweens during the holiday season is always difficult. After all, they usually get several unstructured weeks off from school during this time of year, so you may be searching for new ideas to fill that time with age-appropriate family fun. This is a difficult age anyway, especially for older kids who are preoccupied with school classes, academic pressures, and their teenage social lives; however, that doesn’t have to mean deprioritizing family time or shortchanging the magic of Christmas. Instead, if you can provide them with fun things to do that also facilitate quality time (and perhaps a little productivity), you may be able to create some new Christmas traditions. If you need some ideas, below are 25 thrilling (and educational) Christmas activities with teens as new holiday traditions you can steal:
- Scavenger Hunt (That Ends in a Challenge or Makes You Think)
It may not be associated with Christmas or the holidays, but a Christmas scavenger hunt can be lots of fun for everyone from little kids to older students and young adults, creating a fun game that sparks old memories, deep conversations, or even competitive family challenges. To make the scavenger hunt meaningful, make sure to list items people can actually find, that perhaps require some problem-solving or creativity, and make sure the prize for the winner is compelling enough to top the wish list at a teenage Christmas party. These items could range from ingredients (preceding a cooking challenge game!) to family photos or biblical objects (preceding trivia).
- Educational Board Games (With a Christmas Twist)
Educational board games are not difficult to find, and they’re a great way to facilitate family bonding, cognitive exercises, and fun times when the whole family gets in on them. Try games such as Pictionary, Charades or mime games, Twenty Questions, Hangman, Monopoly, Trivia, or games that center around math quizzes (but with a Santa Claus theme or festive holiday twist). These are a great time because they get kids off their computers, though you can also go online and find digital holiday games if you prefer.
- Watch Christmas Movies Together (And Analyze Them)
We realize that many holiday movies are a bit corny, but there are a lot of funny ones as well, and a Christmas movie night could be an opportunity for a family analysis of the morals and lessons of the picture, or perhaps even a chance to dissect the screenwriting, storyline, and film production in a post-movie analysis. This is a good option for creative teens who may be interested in film production, screenwriting, or videography, as you can turn frivolous holiday fun into an entertainment-focused educational analysis. Whether you choose old classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol or newer movies (or adaptations) like Elf or The Grinch, you can discuss the hook, the various acts, the directorial choices made, and analyze how these movies performed at the box office. This is a way to seamlessly blend entertainment with educational discovery and critical thinking.
- Ugly Sweater Cookie-Decorating Party (You May Inspire a Future Pastry Chef)
During the holidays, ugly sweater contests tend to be popular, so how about a cookie-decorating party centered around these sweaters? Get all of your cookie decorations and colorful icing out and let the kids create and decorate their own cookies. If you do it together as an entire family and let the kids have a few friends over, it is guaranteed to be something they’ll never forget and perhaps spark a culinary, food design, or pastry chef interest in one (or more) of them. Your child could be one cookie-decorating party away from discovering their newfound love of cake design, and this could redirect their entire career plan or at least inspire them to explore opportunities in the dessert and food design industry.
- Teen Christmas Party (Event Planning Could Be in Your Teen’s Future)
You can always let your teenagers plan and conduct their own Christmas party. If they need ideas, try offering a hot chocolate bar, have an ugly sweater contest, or even encourage the guests to bring their own video games so the games can be shared during the party. Add prizes to encourage the kids to participate, but other than that, it’s a good idea to leave the kids alone so they can feel like it’s “their” party. Believe it or not, allowing your tweens or teens some autonomy around planning or leading the party could spark one of them to explore event planning, while also augmenting their independence and confidence.
- Hot Chocolate and Ski Resort Party (Your Teen May Be Cut Out for Hospitality)
Drinking hot chocolate is a favorite of kids during their holiday break, and you can let them pretend they’re at a ski resort, relaxing and drinking hot chocolate that they created themselves. Put out all of the most popular toppings, including whipped cream, marshmallows of different sizes, candy canes, chocolate kisses, straws, and lots of fancy (and large) cups. These seemingly silly creative activities really can incite a teen’s longer-term career interest, whether they choose to go into the food industry or the hospitality space, don’t discount the impact of a fun Christmas activity.
- Baking or Cooking Party (Generosity May Be An After-Effect)
Choose a food item that everyone loves, and let your teens bake or cook something in the kitchen. While they’re there, stay out of the kitchen yourself so that they feel in control of the activity. For suggestions on what they can make, try something such as cookies, homemade trail mix, soft pretzels, pull-apart bread in the shape of a Christmas tree, or a snowman cheese ball. You can find lots more ideas online. If this becomes one of your teen’s favorite Christmas activities, they may want to start baking or cooking as a service project or plan to make a separate batch for a local homeless shelter, hospital, or orphanage, so the holiday spirit may encourage generosity and a heart for service.
- Future Career Party
This game is a bit educational but they’ll get a lot out of it in the end. Let the teens invite friends and have each friend bring their computer. Then, let them choose a career they’re interested in and then go online and research all about that career. This is a great game for career exploration of different jobs, and they can research how much education they’ll need and what a typical day looks like, among other things, to learn more about that particular career. Sometimes a better way to inspire your teen to think about their future is to gamify it with a fun social interaction, and gathering their friends for this joint activity during the holidays is the perfect time for them to investigate and discuss their dreams for the future.
- White Elephant Gift Exchange
These parties can be a blast for kids of all ages. Have each guest bring a gift, but decide beforehand what type of gift it should be – funny, ugly, etc. Have them wrap the presents before coming to your home, then have everyone draw names to see who picks first. The first person chooses a gift and opens it. The other guests do the same, but they can either keep what they opened or steal any gift that’s already been opened. It’s always interesting to see what happens throughout the game. You could even enhance this festive fun with some parameters, such as the requirement that the gifts be industry-themed or science-related or inventions created by young teen entrepreneurs to make it more inspirational.
- Gingerbread House Decorating
You can buy a gingerbread house kit, but you should also include toppings that are a bit unique, in addition to what the kit includes. In other words, give the kids tons of items to add to the gingerbread houses so they look unique and maybe even a little bit ridiculous when they’re done. Include items such as colored sugar, rhinestones, and lots of sparkling things to add to the excitement. This can spark their creativity and artistic talent and even end up in a friendly competition in which each one has to pitch their design choices to the others, thus exercising their communication skills, persuasion, and salesmanship!
- UNO Game (or Santa Claus Go Fish)
UNO is a simple game that everyone loves, and it’s a game that’s a lot more enjoyable when a lot of people are playing – though the same could be said for the more seasonal Santa Claus Go Fish! The more kids your teen invites to the party, the more exciting the game is. While these games may not seem complex or educational, you can incorporate meaningful prizes for the people who win the most games, which could be holiday themed or spark deep discussions or service missions (like donating their prizes or have the prizes be kits to bake Christmas cookies for the neighbors, turned a selfish gift into a selfless one).
- Arts and Crafts Party (You May Inspire a Future Artist or Craft Entrepreneur)
This is a great idea for kids of all ages, especially girls. Choose an activity and supply all of the things they’ll need to complete the project. You can find tons of great suggestions online, including decorating Mason jars in holiday themes, making homemade bath bombs out of cake mix, making pencil toppers using felt, and making mini stockings that you can then fill with a few gifts. If your teen really enjoys coming up with unique gift ideas or making Christmas ornaments, they may decide to try their hand at crafting and selling them next year or opening a hand-crafted gift store on Etsy. For all you know, an arts and crafts party sprinkled with some Christmas magic could spawn your teen’s next booming ornament business!
- Volunteer Projects (And Cultivate a Heart for Service)
If volunteering isn’t on your teen’s list of Christmas activities, they may be missing one of the most rewarding uses of their time off. Some teenagers inherently love to help and to serve, but others simply haven’t been introduced to the idea and importance of altruistic service to the local community (or even to a global cause). You can choose a volunteer project for everyone to participate in, such as grocery shopping for an elderly person, wrapping presents for someone, babysitting for a family so that they can go shopping for gifts, and even raking a neighbor’s yard. It can be any type of helpful activity, and these activities will teach teenagers something important along the way, opening their eyes to the impact they can have on someone in a less fortunate position or in need of some assistance.
- Shopping for Gifts
Teenagers usually have their own shopping lists around Christmas time, so when your teen invites a bunch of friends over, you can take them to the mall so that they can buy the items on those lists, which means they’ll be prepared by the time Christmas day arrives. It also gives them a chance to buy their families gifts when their family members aren’t around to see what those gifts are. You may also want to encourage them to use their allowance or limited spending money on a gift for a stranger or a person in need, as this can help cultivate those service-oriented values, while also indirectly teaching financial discipline and budgeting.
- Photo Booth Fun (For the Future Models and Photographers)
This is a great activity for older teens, although younger kids will consider it just as much fun. Rent a photo booth and let the kids take pictures of themselves all night. Most of these booths come with a ton of accessories that make taking pictures funnier and a lot more enjoyable. These include signs, large hats, fake mustaches, and tons more. It will never be boring regardless of how long the kids are there. This captures happy memories, but it may also spark a deeper interest in modeling or photography for some teens. The more they’re exposed to diverse activities, the more chances they have to discover the ones that truly resonate with them and could produce long-term fruitful passion projects, refined talents, or even careers.
- Making Smores (or a Mystery Ingredient Competition)
Smores are something everyone loves, and a s’mores party is always exciting. Just go to the grocery store and buy tons of graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate bars, and you’re all set. It’s a cheap way to have a party and it’s something that allows the teens to create and eat the entire time. If you want something truly unique, let your teens make their own enhanced one-of-a-kind s’mores with mystery ingredients added in and conduct a blind taste test, in which you rank the s’mores from best to least and try to guess the mystery ingredients. This adds an element of surprise, friendly competition, and gets their creative and culinary juices flowing.
- Make Holiday Popcorn Balls
Popcorn balls are easier to make than you think, and a party that revolves around this activity will always be appreciated. The ingredients include popcorn, corn syrup, sugar, and some seasonings, but they can also use food coloring to change the look of the balls. You can even let the teens decorate and label the popcorn balls, and even place them in containers so they’re ready to give away as presents. If the popcorn ball creation experience becomes one of their favorite things, they may want to start gifting their popcorn balls or even selling them, thus spawning another accidental holiday-inspired business!
- Christmas Light Viewing (and Analyzing the Light Hanging Business)
If you have a bunch of kids that need something to do, even if it’s just a small group of them, driving them around to look at the Christmas lights can be a lot of fun. In most cities, there are areas that are known to go overboard on displaying lots of colored lights around Christmas time, and even lots of businesses decorate their buildings, so gorgeous lights should never be difficult to find. In addition to viewing the lights, you could even analyze the Christmas light hanging business, so your teens could try to calculate how much money could be generated through offering Christmas light hanging services in local neighborhoods. This is a great way to get your teen to start analyzing everyday things from a zoomed-out perspective, realizing that oftentimes businesses, careers, and industrial people were behind the inventions they may take for granted or overlook.
- Make an Advent Calendar (for People or Pets)
Everyone loves looking forward to receiving gifts at Christmas time, and if you have an advent calendar, you’ll know exactly when that day is going to come. Let your teen invite a group of friends to the house and let them make their own advent calendars – either for people or for pets. Provide all of the things they’ll need to make a great-looking calendar, and let them use their creativity to create the perfect one in the end. They may get inspired to start making and gifting or selling advent calendars to friends, family, or people online. Furthermore, pet advent calendars have been taking the market by storm in recent years, and many sell out weeks before Christmas. If your teen wants to fill that gap and add a teen-created pet-focused advent calendar to the market, they just might reap significant rewards!
- Let Them Choose the Activity
Getting kids off of computers and social media for a while is always a good thing, and if you let them choose the activity themselves, it is guaranteed to be enjoyed by everyone. Let them decide before the get-together exactly what they wish to do (away from the screen), and your job is to provide them with the items needed to make their goal a reality. Teens feeling in control always equals a memorable activity, and it’s a great way to foster their decision-making, time planning, and independence.
- Stocking Exchange (With a Twist)
Have each teen bring several stockings filled with tiny gifts and food items, and have them bring enough for the entire group to get one of the stockings. For this activity, you might want to keep the group small so that each teen isn’t bringing too many stockings. Otherwise, it could get expensive for them. When the party is over, each participant will end up with several stockings, which is a lot of fun for them. You could add a fun twist and let the teens decide if they want to keep all their stockings or gift them to someone less fortunate; this is a great moral and emotional growth challenge for them to blossom in maturity if they choose to give, rather than receive and hoard.
- Karaoke Party With Christmas Tunes
For this event, you can rent a karaoke machine and let the kids sing Christmas carols throughout the evening. Karaoke machines come in many sizes, so choose one that is nice and big and gives you access to features that help everyone play it, even if they’ve never sung at karaoke before. This can be a great activity for talented teens who already enjoy music and singing to both flex their vocal skills, practice matching pitch, and banish their stage fright while building up their performance confidence and stage presence.
- Christmas Bark-Off
Peppermint bark is a popular candy around the holidays, so let the kids make their own bark by buying all of the supplies and letting them do it themselves. Supplies include inexpensive and easy-to-find items such as peppermint candies, milk chocolate, white chocolate, and peppermint extract. Just make sure the kids are old enough to use the stove without a lot of supervision for the best results. Once again, this just might be the Christmas story that sparks their custom holiday bark-selling business, so don’t discount the power of fun ideas and Christmas party games!
- Cookie Bake-Off
Everyone loves Christmas cookies, so buy enough ingredients for the teens to make several different types of cookies that they can eat afterwards. Buy what’s necessary for chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, and any other type that you know everyone will love. This is yet another inexpensive and simple activity they’ll love that both makes for a great treat at the end of the party and provides the potential inspiration for a future service offering or holiday food business.
- Make Their Own Wrapping Paper
The holidays require a lot of wrapping paper, and letting teens create their own wrapping paper is a great art project that even non-artists will enjoy doing. Just buy lots of art supplies, including stickers and stamps, and let the kids do their own thing. If they all go to the same school, you might want to consider buying lots of markers and paints in their school colors. Make sure you buy lots of thick paper as well, or you can even use newspapers, including the comics section, for a look that is even more interesting. They can even use their homemade wrapping paper to wrap gifts they donate to orphans and kids in poverty, turning their artistic hobby into a more meaningful act of kindness. In fact, if they really enjoy making wrapping paper, they may want to sell their unique, custom-crafted, homemade wrapping paper and donate a portion of the proceeds to a good cause, challenging them to get out of their comfort zone, interact with potential customers, and both make money and give back.
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