The Seven Days of Solstice- A Family Tradition.

Okay, so we created our own holiday. Much like Seinfeld and Festivus. We call it the Seven Days of Solstice. Solstice for the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice and seven days because we wanted to drag it out a bit. What we usually do is give smallish presents to the kids every evening leading up to their big present on Solstice morning. This year we told the kids we are going to do things a little differently. Since coming up with seven gifts for three kids (that's 21 gifts!) is a lot of stuff. I do try for things like art projects, books, clothes, etc... so it's not 21 toys but it's still just too much. So this year we told the kids the week before solstice is going to be about experiences rather than gifts. So now I have to come up with a weeks worth of experiences to share as a family. Good challenge. Of course some of them are easy because there are things we already do that are usually disguised as a present to one of the kids. One thing we normally do is make candles. We keep it simple by getting a beeswax candle rolling kit This always proves to be a fun activity for every one. So that's one night. Five nights to go... Another thing we normally do is make gingerbread houses! That takes two nights, one night of baking and one night of decorating, that's two more down, three nights to go... I was thinking of some house decorating... but I have not come up with a firm idea yet. Here's a good idea for egg carton bells and twig stars that looks like fun. I definitely have plenty of these supplies around! So that could be one night, two more to go. Another idea I had was to make snow globes! How cute are these? So that only leaves one more thing and I was thinking maybe of some kind of an outing experience? Or on solstice we usually do a lantern walk around our neighborhood, we could invite another family to join us, make a pot of soup and try to have an outdoor fire afterwards and roast marshmellows or something... or we could all go see a movie or a play together or...? I'll have to keep thinking about this one but I think I'm off to a pretty good start. There's a chance we might go on a family vacation to California. So we would have to put all these things off until after Solstice if this comes together. (Edited to add) Other ideas: Game night. A new family board game... or something super cool like a foosball table. (disclaimer: I really just kind of want a Foosball table...) or something more creative/ less expensive. How about a house scavenger hunt, or some kind of riddle solving... hmmmmmm.... that could be fun. Also wanted to add that with the candle making we usually make some for us and some to give away as gifts. I'm sure I'll think of more. Happy Winter Solstice!