Monday, February 11, 2013

A Family Date: Snow Day

With snow falling all over the Twin Cities, people of all ages ventured out this weekend to go sledding, make snow angels, and have some winter weather fun. My family had a snowball fight with the fresh snow (Emma refereed), built a pair of snowmen in our front yard, and enjoyed some hot cocoa in front of the fireplace.
 

We had a special, relaxing day together and I wanted to share my Top 10 Ideas for Turning a Snow Day into a Family Date:

1. Make a family of snow angels, or build a snowman for each family member, and decorate them. 

2. Take a nature walk, in a nearby park or even your backyard. Look for tracks and try to identify what left them. Think of what each animal might be looking for in the snow.



3. SNOWBALL FIGHT!! Split into teams: adults vs. kids, boys vs. girls, or whatever works for your family. Then stock on up "ammo" and let the battle begin!


4. Decorate a tree with yummy treats for the neighborhood wildlife. One simple idea is to smear peanut butter over a pine cone, and roll it in bird seed. Hang it in a tree with a bit of yarn.



5. After sledding, come inside to warm up with some hot soup or warm cocoa!

6. Break out an old board game. Candyland or Chutes and Ladders can be fun whether you're 3 or 30.

7. Make music! Using an instrument or only voices, make up a song and let each child add a bit to it.


8. Get out the Legos or blocks and create something together. Depending on how many you have, this can be one structure or a whole "city" of creations.

9. Turn down the thermostat a couple degrees, crowd onto the couch under some cozy blankets, and watch a family movie together. Snuggle time!

10. Make a real SNOW cone. All you need is a bowl, spoon, a patch of fresh snow, and some flavoring. We used to simply top fresh snow with a drizzle of maple syrup when we were kids, but you could also use vanilla or root beer extract. Kool-Aid is also a fun choice. To use Kool-Aid flavoring, combine one Kool-Aid packet, 1 cup of water, and 1 1/2 cups of sugar and stir until the sugar is as dissolved as you can get it. Find some clean, white snow, and scoop some snow into your bowl. Spoon the flavoring of your choice over your snow cone and begin eating!


Snow days are the stuff of lasting childhood memories. Intentionally or not, families often develop snow day traditions, like sledding or playing board games or making hot chocolate.

What are your family's snow day traditions? 

3 comments:

  1. whenever my kids have snow days we always shovel out our fire pit. Then we make hot coco and smores and start a fire and tell family stories!

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  2. My sister, my dad, and I just had a huge blizzard, and the snow was about 3 feet deep so we took all our shovels and dug tunnels through the whole entire front yard and backyard. When we let our dogs out they were going through all the tunnels, curiously!!!!!!:)

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  3. I remember the snow days when my children were home from school. I loved those times! We made pop corn, baked cookies, played board games. Sometimes we had a 3 day blizzard; it was so much fun to have the kids and my husband home all day! One time the power was off so we had to put lots of clothes on to stay warm! It wasn't so much fun that time!

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