Winter is beautiful.
Colorful birds, Christmas lights and conifers are contrasted by a bright white canvas. Snowfall brings a natural, muted calm to the busyness of the season. Aromas like spicy cinnamon, pine and cookies made from grandma’s handed-down secret recipe bring back warm memories of parties past and being asked to read the story of Jesus’ birth from an enormous family Bible.
Winter is also harsh.
Snowy wind and freezing temperatures can be too bitter for little ones to play outside for long, and icy roads cause terrible things like church and playgroup cancellations.
On especially snowy days, when ever last piece of snow gear was soaked, my mom would bring out a big roll of newsprint and we’d make beautiful snowflakes to hang on the windows. Mom would carefully fold the paper to make more realistic, six-sided snowflakes, and would cut detailed diamonds, hearts and moon shapes. One year, we sprayed the paper snowflakes with gold paint and used them to decorate our Christmas tree. It looked amazing.
Finding fun things to do on bad-weather days is one of the many responsibilities that come with the territory of parenthood.
This month’s giveaway (sorry it’s late… went on a mini vacation to Tokyo by myself for a few days… thanks again, love!) is designed to make beating the winter blues a little easier. I’ve never seen origami paper so cool, and I had to share the crafty goodness with my readers.
What is your favorite creative way to spend bad-weather days as a family?
Maybe it’s using a calligraphy pen to write beautiful verses or poems over children’s watercolor paintings to frame and give as presents, turning household books into a library by using scrap paper date cards, rubber stamps and Polaroid photo ID library cards, or ordering from your children at their plastic food restaurant (my brother reminded me the other day that ours was called “McDonaking”) …I’d like to know!
Please share your best family-friendly activity tip in the comments of this post to be eligible to win this 11-piece origami prize pack:
Eight packs of Japanese origami paper:
Two origami folding instruction books
One, 400 sheet capacity origami paper carrying to help make your creativity portable.
From the list of comments (and yes, you have to leave a pertinent comment in order to qualify!) my children will draw the winning name.
My hope is that this giveaway will bring some sunshine to the winter doldrums and inspire parents to help their children have fun, and make some happy life-time lasting memories together in the process.
BONUS: If you mention this giveaway in your blog (send me a “proof†link) or Tweet (via @mrsalbrecht), you will get ONE extra entry. (C’mon! I know some of you get a little carried away with this stuff and I can’t keep track of THAT many tiny pieces of paper!!) PLEASE do me a small favor and post a “proof link†or copy of Tweet so I’m sure to not to miss your extra-entry qualification. (Thanks!)
Please leave your comment by 9PM EST, January 8, 2010.
The winner will need to provide their mother’s maiden name, social security number, and a valid US credit card number + three digit secret code. JUST KIDDING! I will, however, need their name and mailing address which will be kept strictly confidential.
If they’re agreeable, I’d like to interview the winner and feature them in a future post. I would consider including links in the post to the winner’s blog, favorite cause, home business, etc.
Winning contestants may not enter my subsequent monthly giveaway contests for a year following their win. In other words, if you win in January, 2010, you cannot enter again until January, 2011.
Origami, Snowflakes and Other Paper-Related Pleasures:
Origami Club (English version)
Robert J. Lang – Origami Artist
Enchanted Learning : Paper Crafts
Photo Credit: Winter Cardinal by JMitaStudios via Flickr
Great to talk to you on Christmas! Miss you! Before I was married I often spent wintry days armchair traveling to other places in the world via library books (memoirs, travel guides, etc.). Being a mom now, I still armchair travel but not as much, but my children love to use their imaginations and create their own worlds via Playmobil. We recently had a bitterly cold snow storm and after playing outside each time they fell back into their Playmobil world. I love to listen to them as they engage in imaginary play of any type!
We live in Southern California and bad weather here is basically a strong rainstorm. We have a rainguage in the backyard so after the storm we’ll go out and see how much rainfall we received. On those sorts of days, we’re indoors playing boardgames. My son likes to play with his legos and my daughter enjoys drawing or working on craft projects. I always try to have some audio books checked out from the library. Both kids enjoy listening to them on headphones.
Great giveaway! We’ve hosted 2 Japanese Exchange “daughters” and loved watching them create origami.
Let’s see a family-friendly activity that we like to do is have a “movie” night. I usually keep a hidden stash a some big candy bars and microwave popcorn and when we need some quiet time, a movie tends to work! We cuddle up in blankets and enjoy our home movie theater on the couch all cuddled up together. A fire going is always nice, too!
Other activities include Game Night with chips & dip and finger type foods, baking cookies–yum…and sometimes just reading a book aloud.
…although when we do get a good winter storm with snow, the kids all pick sledding outdoors while mom is inside making some hot cocoa.
These are some fun ideas! Thanks!!!
Remember, you can have an extra entry from blogging or tweeting about this giveaway :)
My kids are older, so they mostly to school work, but we used to do craft things on those snowy days if the kids were not outside playing in it. For crafts, we’d just pick out a craft book from the shelf and got right to it. Or we’d make cookies. Reading aloud while drinking hot chocolate was always a fun one, too.
This looks like a lot of fun. We like to craft or play games.
For my family, it depends on what is going on. Sometimes, if it’s cold, we’ll all just sit around the fire and read. Then other times, when we’re all in a mood to be more active, we’ll play games–either one of the millions of boardgames we’ve collected over the years, or a game on the Wii (if it’s over at the house at the time).
Many times, either for our dinner or maybe for a potluck or tailgate that is coming up, all the women will huddle into the kitchen. My mum puts on a CD, we all grab workspaces, and then we just cook. There is a lot of talking and silliness, but delicious things usually come out of it.
This past Christmas Eve was a particularly nasty day where I lived. It was chilly, not cold, but it was raining the whole day. My sister and I had helped with all the wrapping and cleaning, so my mum decided she wanted us all to make cookies.
The cookies ended up being delicious–a tea cookie recipe my mum found that utilized the buttermilk she had from another recipe that she needed to rid of, but I guess we didn’t roll the dough out enough before using the cookie cutters. We had beautiful Christmas shapes, a couple of non-Christmas shapes (the state of Alabama, a lion–though I maintained that it was a Christmas lion), and three cookies with my initials that I had molded from candy canes (I’m not arrogant, I just thought it was funny). We put them in the oven and to our surprise, we later pulled out a pan to see everything had baked into each other into giant cookies.
To us, it was hilarious–especially since all the batches came out like this. We created a fun game of “guess the shape,” that we shared with our friends later that night. My da came home at some point to see us laughing hysterically in the kitchen. He joined in our game, trying to figure out what the shapes were as well.
Through the shaking of laughter, I was able to take a few pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25770008@N06/sets/72157622989351777/ (It’s worksafe, and all that jazz, b/c it’s just cookies baking).
Oh we would love to win that. My grandson would love it and it would be just what we need right now.
What we work on in bad weather is plays. Our family enjoys putting on plays. Its so much fun. They can get funny. When we forget our lines we can all come up with something. When it gets cold like it is now. Laughter is a good thing. Oh and the plays my grandson writes. Now he can come up with some of the most hilarious stuff.
We live in Florida so we certainly don’t get snow or super bad weather, but this week it’s been super cold for us so I’ve had to be a little creative.
We did some Wii playing because thats new, we are in the midst of a paper mache project- I try to do some more in depth crafty stuff when it’s yucky out. We also did some nature journaling from the window instead of being out in it.
This is such a great giveaway! Thank you Sarah!
Love snow days. We have snow ball fights, sledding, build snow people, and make snow angels. If it’s not an outside day, we play board games, do puzzles, put on music and dance, make lego cities, and lastly our favorite comfort meal – grilled cheese, tomato soup, and hot chocolate.
Thanks Sarah, this is a fun idea.
Well how to keep the kids busy when it’s to cold to play outside. We usually alternate between board games which we love (Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Monopoly, Memoir ’44, Connect 4, Uno or Chess), imaginary play with accessories from a building type toy (Erector set, Klikko, or marble tower pieces) along with cushions and blankets for fort building, to wanting electronics time (computer, tv, game boy, Wii) which of course need to be earned by exercising (running laps around the house, jumping on the mini trampoline, wrestling or roller bladding in the garage). Sometimes we do get out the twisting balloons and make all kinds of shapes, animals, weapons (Bows, arrows, swards, guns). And like others sometimes we settle in for an early movie over dinner (Pizza) snuggled together with popcorn for dessert. When the boys were younger, staying in PJ’s and building forts was a major activity. They have even taken their mattress from their bed and put it on the stairs to form a slide. There is also camping in the house, set up the tent and sleep in it with sleeping bags. Hope these ideas help, we’ve had lots of fun with them.
Miss you guys!
Thanks for this, Sarah Joy!
We really love tucking under the covers while Fred reads to us. Currently, we’re laughing hysterically over Pippi Longstocking and looking for our next family books.
We’ve also enjoyed playing games (Scrabble and Sequence are our two new ones.)
Thanks again!
Love,
Tara B.
Sounds like I could use some good ideas from these comments!
These activities aren’t limited to wintry weather here, but we also like bundling under blankets by the fire for a good story or movie. My children are also Playmobil enthusiasts and spend their days creating buildings & furniture etc out of cardboard & wood. My oldest also has been creating swords, guns, poison bottles etc for their playing. :-) They also like to create cities for Hot Wheel cars. They also put in a story on tape/cd and draw & color while listening and we also like to pull out a game to play while having some hot ‘carob milk’. The winter addition to these things is the blankets & fire, hot carob/cocoa & cookies. :-)
Not too original, but that’s we do… now I have some more ideas!
Thanks for the great offer, Sarah!!
Oh, not trying to get another entry ;-) but I forgot to mention that if we *had* a snow day, since it only happens about once every 5 yrs at our current home my dc would be in it soaking up every minute of it before it melted in a few hours. :-)
My kids like to play board games or play card games (go fish, etc.) or play with the wooden ABC bible memory game that their Grandma gave them for Christmas a few years ago. Arts and crafts are a big hit too. Coloring, painting, and my youngest, Rachel, has a love for tape and glue so we try to keep them on hand for something to be created :-)
What a great giveaway Sarah!
Some of my favorite childhood snowy day memories are making room fresheners by pushing cloves into oranges, usually in pretty patterns, and then tie a string on it and hang it. We also worked hard to make a cardboard box scaled replica of our home in Barbie size… complete with fabric scraps and carpet remnants. :)
As a mom now, we do lots of the usual… watch movies, bundle up and play in the snow, Wii, etc…
My daughter’s FAVORITE thing is crafts! Recently, I bought a small wooden box from the craft store and let her decorate it to her heart’s content with paint, glitter glue, rinestones, etc. to make her own jewelry box. She also loves making her own simple jewelry with pony beads and elastic cord. Making things to give away is also lots of fun (like painted suncatchers, perler bead magnets, and even cards for grandparents and friends).
I think mostly the snow, cold and cancelation of crazy schedules just makes a really good excuse to spend time together, and hopefully making a few memories along the way. :)
Sarah,
You are so inspirational! Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and creativity with all of us!
Thank you so much for this giveaway, Sarah! We love doing craft activities, here. Our favorite way to spend gray days together is to drink hot cocoa, while I read aloud a longer book such as The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We love painting, playing cards, Blokus, playdoh, etc.. Being at home with little ones is such a blessing!
.-= Christine@ Lily of the Valley´s last blog ..Eating From the Pantry: Goals and Plans =-.
A family friendly activity we stumbled upon is pretend play. We made supper, made the menu, waiter, served the meal and paid for the meal in play money. My son learned for school and had so much fun that today we did candy store. We bought candy and he graphed and counted the inventory.(tasted some too) He is making a sign right now and when Dad comes home- he will be owner of the candy store and sell candy to us. He is so excited. he asked if we can do a firehouse next week. Preparation takes time and the end result is cool for him and his dad who was at work all day.
Good Evening – during the cold, snowy, wintery days, I would often be outside building snow forts, playing in snow ball fights and or maybe even playing a few different sports like Football, Baseball and/or Soccer (the snow definitly added a degree of difficulty!)
Since I’ve now got kids of my own, I imagine as they get older, I’ll be out with them building not only Snowmen, but other characters as well (If we can somehow build a Mario or Sonic or Backyardigan, we’ll see how those will turn out!) I also enjoy staying inside, by the fire, and reading a good book, or playing some card games, while drinking some good Hot Chocolate.
Thanks for the post. I liked your blog.