10+ Fun, Socially Distant Family Holiday Activities!

10 Fun, Socially Distant Family Holiday Activities! Written by the Elf on 10/27/2020. This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog.

Fun and Socially Distant Family Holiday Activities!

The holidays this year look a little different. But it might be more important than ever to encourage a warm, generous, and fuzzy holiday family feeling in this season. With a nasty flu season coming while we’re right in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, tensions and health concerns are high. So here’s 10+ ideas from our team on socially distant ways that you can still foster the holiday spirit with your family and friends in this season!

1- Have a themed cooking night!

*My favorite that I’ve seen so far: Harry Potter cookbook night, peppers (from appetizer to dessert!), Great British Baking Show copycat, The Office themed (including costumes), and Chopped- pantry edition.
*This is something you can do multiple times! Plan just one or one a week! There are only 8 Friday’s until the end of the year. If you picked one night every two weeks to do a theme, that’s only 4 to plan!
*Themes can be as simple or complex as you want! Plan the theme around a favorite book, show, type of food, cookbook, or just what you have in the cupboard!

Coordinating a themed cooking night virtually?:

*Find recipes that can be easily found at any grocery store
*Agree on a theme and recipes!
*Have fun cooking, eating together, or both!

2- Drive through the lights!

*Christmas lights will likely be out a little sooner and a little longer this year- hooray!! I’m a huge Christmas lights fan!! And will definitely be going multiple times this year.
*Pro-tip: Do not go on the typical nights, they’ll be even more busy this year! I would not plan this during the week of Christmas. I would suggest going on a weekday or a Sunday evening, rather than a weekend.
* If you are local to the DFW Texas area, there are already THREE drive through light experience options! Huzzah!!
1) The Dallas Zoo will have a completely drive through light experience this year.
2) Prairie Lights in Grand Prarie will be a completely drive through experience.
3) Radiance! will be a drive through holiday lights experience coming to 3 different locations! Frisco, Decatur, and Weatherford.

Coordinating Light Watching Virtually?:

*Try planning a show and tell virtual show and tell call after you go look at lights! Take pictures of the best, craziest, and funniest houses and decorations to share with each other.
*Drive or walk through your own neighborhoods and take pictures of the houses that you award best overall, funniest, most sophisticated, etc…

3- Say YES to the mess!

Try some messy crafts and cooking that you would usually say no to trying!
*Put down a drop cloth or disposable table cloth and get busy painting! Or go outside and do some splatter painting! (Make sure if you splatter paint you keep in mind what is in front and in back of the painting area, I speak from unfortunate non-washable experience!)
*Make something messy from scratch that you never have before!! We learned how to make pizza from scratch and it was so fun!
*Do a fun and messy experiment together, like one from Emily’s Wonder lab! Or your typical volcano experiment- but add glitter!
*Slime may not be as popular anymore, but it’s still fun to make and experiment with!!

Planning messy fun together virtually?:

*Try a virtual painting class together
*Pick a messy recipe and see what the results are in different places with different people!
*Send each other paintings or cards you made!

4- Family movie nights!

*Check out our list of 25+ Christmas movies to watch and WHERE to stream them this season!*
We are huge fans of movies around here! You can find our movie reviews and discussion guides right here. There are so many ways to make a family movie night special and fun too.
*Make a special treat to eat while you’re watching the movie!
*Discuss the movie together the next day
*Build a fort around the TV or get dressed up with special Pj’s!
*Re-enact your favorite scenes!
*Sorry Thanksgiving, but Christmas definitely has a wider variety of movies to choose from! Try a Christmas movie you might not have seen before. Or one you haven’t watched in years. Some of our favorite’s that we’ve reviewed are The new animated Grinch movie, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and The Star (which is a year round favorite for our kids)!

Planning a virtual movie night?:

*If you have Disney Plus, you can try out the group watch feature and watch a movie at the same time! We weren’t super impressed with it when we tried it, but it’s still fun.
*Everyone on one side of our extended family picks a movie that they think everyone else should see and we watch one of them a month and then discuss them on our family call.
*If you have little ones, try having a fort building competition

5- Make a gratitude chain

Why?: Gratitude is one thing that helps keeps us afloat when things feel out of control and hard. In Brene Brown’s Call to Courage she talks about the fact that research shows that gratitude is a huge part of how resilient we are, and consequently one way we help out kids build resiliency.

*Grab some pretty paper!
*Cut it up into strips
*Have everyone write or draw something they are thankful for!
*You can do it all at once, once a day, or once a week!
It’s such a fun, physical and visual representation of our gratitude!

Planning a chain of gratitude virtually?:

*Make each other physical chain links and mail them to each other
*Create a shared Google document and add to it together
*Or start off every call sharing what you’re each thankful for that day or week

6- Family Competition

Minute to Win it, A bake off! There’s no end to the possibilities!

Virtually or in person, these can really add some silly fun to your festivities!

*Take your favorite creations from the Great British Baking Show and try to recreate them! Judge more off of the look and add bonus points for taste if you are doing this virtually. OR try a blind bake competition, dedicate a judge and everyone bakes the same thing!
*Home Olympics! Using minute-to-win-it games, families have made entire Olympics out of that! (Like this families quarantine olympics)
*Create a family trophy that could be mailed back and forth and make a board game bracket for your own house or each house, and then the champions can face off when you can all get together.
*Talent or fashion show!! You have to be willing to be goofy to pull this one off, but if everyone participates it can be a really fun and time consuming activity! Everyone practices for a couple of weeks and then comes together for a big zoom call! (This one is great for groups of friends too!)

7- Pick a new chapter book to read out loud together!

*We love reading here!! Here’s our list of NEW Christmas books + 15 of our favorite Christmas read alouds!!
*Reading together is bonding and calming! (of course that doesn’t mean that the kids are going to be calm or quiet while you read!)
*You can do it just with the people you live with or virtually! You can also do a virtual book club with friends from anywhere!
*Pick a book, read it, (or listen to it on audiobook!) and meet virtually to discuss it!

Here are our top 5 read-aloud chapter book suggestions:

Planning a virtual read aloud?:

It might seem awkward at first, but try reading to each other on Zoom or Facetime! This is especially fun for older relatives or friends to read to kiddos.

8- Start a new family tradition!

It’s already a year to remember!

*Some of our favorite ideas
-Annual family game night
-Decorating and singing Christmas carols
-Gingerbread house building
-Act out the Christmas story
-Every night watch a themed movie or episode

Planning a new tradition virtually?:

I don’t know about you, but even on a normal year it never fails that someone gets sick, a time off request is denied, or something unexpected pops up! So starting a virtual holiday tradition might come in handy in years to come too! Brainstorm together and try one together!

9- Have an outdoor adventure day

There are so many great reasons to enjoy exploring the outdoors together! Getting our bodies moving outside often lowers stress, blood pressure, and it’s fun! Where we live there probably are not any snow days in our future, but we can still make a day of enjoying the outdoors! Here are some ideas…
*Visit a nearby trail that you’ve never visited before
*If you’ve got it- enjoy the snow! Teach someone a new snow trick or learn one yourself! Like how to make a better snowball!
*Play an outdoor game together that you haven’t played in years, like jumping in the leaves.

Planning to share an outdoor adventure virtually?:

Try a scavenger hunt!!! You can do one live together on facetime or you can share your results with each other afterward! You can take pictures of what you find or mark it off on a checklist. Here are some links to some printable options: One to color, a second color in, a sensory hunt, and a fall hunt!

10- GIVE!

There’s nothing that will increase the holiday spirit more than giving! And we often underestimate just how generous our kids can be!

*Make CARDS! They don’t have to be fancy or a lot, but everyone’s struggling and I do not know a single person who does not like getting a note of encouragement in the mail!
*Donate to your favorite charities and non-profits!
-If you can make a financial donation, that’s great! But you can also donate stuff you’ve cleaned out and don’t need anymore, or something you’ve made, or your virtual time!
*Encourage strangers! Happy letters or pictures in your windows, chalk on the sidewalk on your local trail, the possibilities are endless! Get creative!
*We have made a PDF with ways to encourage kindness and giving with your kids- preschool to high school! And it comes with a printable kindness challenge calendar. On the very last page you’ll find one that has been updated for doing acts of kindness at home. Grab it here at our store for only $1.50 for the rest of the year or FREE when you subscribe to our newsletter! It’s based on the book “77 Creative Ways Kids Can Serve” which you can pick up here.
*Be aware of your neighbors. Is there a way you can encourage or help your neighbors? Pick up your elderly neighbors groceries? Start a window bear or snowflake hunt for kids in the neighborhood?

Coordinating giving virtually?:

*Try an at-home walk-a-thon 5k together! Fundraising walks/runs are super popular, but this year most of them are happening in our own neighborhoods. You can sign up for a virtual walk together that benefits a great cause and walk on the same day and time, even from states away!
*Consider holding a virtual fundraiser for a non-profit that is near and dear to you! You can make a video for your fundraiser with family and friends from afar and fundraise through FB or another platform.
*Sponsor a child or children together! There are a ton of non-profit programs that rely on big events to meet their desired sponsorships! We sponsor a kiddo through Compassion but there are a ton of other sponsorship programs. With most of them, you can take turns writing letters to the child you are sponsoring! I would imagine that Operation Christmas Shoebox, Angeltree and other similar projects will have mannny more applicants this season and in the coming year and a lot fewer opportunities to present the need to potential sponsors.
*Find a penpal that could use an encouraging buddy!
*Take our kindness challenge together! Grab it for free by subscribing to our e-mail list or here at our digital store!

Other Ideas:

*Go pick fruit at a farm or visit a socially distanced pumpkin patch
*Fall football can be fun, you can make predictions and brackets together
*Weekly dance parties, take turns choosing the music
*Attend virtual parties or conferences together
-My husband and his family have LOVED doing Masterclasses together this year! And they always have a great Black Friday deal!
*Doing exercise or craft videos together can also be a lot of fun!

Before you go, check out these posts!

-Where to stream over 25 Christmas Movies this season!
-15+ of our favorite Christmas read aloud books!
–Max and AJ: A Social Distance Activity Book
–25 Fun Family Board Games
–5 Lessons from Narnia on Communication
–Diversity Encouragement with kids 0-5yrs old
–20 Quick Quarantine Tips
–25 Engaging Art Activities with only 5 supplies

Let us know in the comments what your favorite quarantine activity has been at home and virtually!!
And please take a second to share this on social media or pin it for later!

Down The Hobbit Hole Blog and this Socially Distant Family Holiday Activities post use affiliate links, we only link products we think you’ll like and you are never charged extra for them. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. We also use cookies to gather analytics and present advertisements. This allows us to keep writing discussion questions and telling ridiculous dad jokes. Find our other reviews with discussion questions here. Our posts about faith here. And our posts about family stuff here.