Holidays at home: Thanksgiving and Christmas activities

Hey guys!

It's Lay.

So I'm back to post one blog post because I've always wanted to post a thanksgiving blog post but around this time last year I was too burnout because it was my first semester in college, so I was still adjusting. This year I'm doing much better at balancing but I'm taking time off to reorganize my content for both this blog and youtube. In this blog post, I want to list activities to do for Thanksgiving and Christmas still cheerful.

Thanksgiving Activities

1. Write out things you're thankful for

This can turn into a really fun activity. One thing you can do is turn it into a decoration situation, where you can write down a bunch of things you’re thankful for on leaves or some type of cute decoration that represents Thanksgiving and have a thing for and this can be a fun activity, especially if you have kids. I've personally been practicing how to show more gratitude. I write down in my journal whenever I have time, listing at least 16 things that I’m thankful for. In the time of this pandemic, where things are pretty complicated and confusing, we have to sometimes remind ourselves about the good things that we have going for ourselves.

Here are some of my personal gratitudes to inspire you:

I am thankful to have a home and have things to provide for my basic needs. One thing people tend to forget is that some people are really struggling financially to the point where they rely on food banks because taxes, rent, bills, etc. are just too high and they have to make sacrifices to still have a home. I am so thankful for the bond I have created with my mom and my brothers, specifically. I feel like if this didn’t happen we would still have the same relationship but I feel like this year we became closer. I am also thankful for the new additions to my family. I just had a niece this year before everything started and she is so beautiful. When I think about her I just want to protect her in every way possible. I was used to being one of the youngest in the family, but not too long ago we had new additions. I just want to protect the younger ones in my family and most of them are girls, so I just want to kind of make something that maybe they can refer to or think about or just to see when they are older. I want to make something to create a difference for them. I am thankful for the people that have been connecting with me. I’m not talking just about family but people in general, who take the time of the day to talk to me, check on me, and just make this quarantine a little better. I feel like sometimes we can get so disconnected and we still need that type of social health, which is a lot more difficult with everything going on but still as equally important. I am also thankful for the development I made this year and that is why I’m so excited to be introducing something I’ve been working on for months. I can’t speak too much on it but be sure to check back in for the new year.

2. Create a dinner menu for your immediate family

The reason I say this is because most places are having guidelines for the holidays. I am assuming many people would stay home so creating a menu for the family you’ve been staying with is a good idea because you may have to cook smaller portions this year. And because we’ve been home so much there had been a lot more cooking so creating a menu that differs from meals you’ve been having over quarantine is really important. For some ideas, you can look on Pinterest and you can also decide if you want to keep the meals traditional this year or if you want to do something more unique and it can be a family decision.

3. Play football

I’m not a sports person but you can play no contact football with family either at a park or in your backyard if you have one and if you don’t have enough to make teams you can just toss it back and forth to get some exercise in.

4. Play a video game as a family

Playing video games is my alternate suggestion to playing football because there are some games you can play that makes you more active like the Wii sports games or dancing games but you can also play just more family-friendly games like racing or like the Mario games. This is my preference instead of playing sports because it's just as fun and healthy depending on the game.

5.Shop for Christmas gifts

If you haven't shopped for Christmas gifts yet, you need to start shopping now. From what I've seen some websites already started having discounts and I've read a lot of articles about how this year's Black Friday/ Cyber Monday is different which is not surprising.

6.Make a wish list

I've never personally done this but I know some families have this as a tradition.

Christmas activities

Since many of these ideas act as more of a bucket list, I'm not explaining in-depth, as I did for the thanksgiving part.

• Decorate the Christmas tree and your home

• Wrap Christmas gifts

• Binge watch Christmas movies/ episodes from childhood

• Have a gingerbread house-building contest

• Bake cookies

• Make Hot chocolate bombs

• Re-create holiday drinks

• Make a menu for Christmas dinner

• Make Christmas care packages

• Send Christmas cards

• Make a Christmas Tik Tok/ Reel

• Read a Christmas story

• Create or participate in a Christmas challenge (E.g Vlogmas or Blogmas)

• Make a Christmas outfit

• Have a Christmas photoshoot

• DIY Christmas Stockings

• Have a challenge jar for Christmas themed challenges

• Make a Christmas playlist

• Start writing out your New Years Resolutions

• Have an Ugly sweater contest over zoom

• Have a secret Santa and mail them your gifts

• Send thank you letter to essential workers

• Donate food at a food bank

• Have a family sleepover in the living room

• Watch old family movies or organize old pictures from past holiday

• Catch on youtube videos (especially vlogmas ones)

• Donate toys to a charity

• Donate clothes to a charity

• Create a reflection journal for the holidays

• Have a craft/ painting day

I really hope you enjoyed this blog post. The next one won't be until the last Saturday of December which is really crazy to say. I feel like I blinked and this year is done. Hopefully, the next blog I work on will have a lot more details because it's going to my final life update of the year. I'm really excited to fill everyone in and start working on the new content for 2021! Since I'm not going to have a new post until December 26th, I hope you have a good holiday season: Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy Kwanza! I'm sorry that this post is geared towards Christmas, since it Is the holiday I celebrate I don't know much about the traditions of the other celebrations but I would love to learn about them. Remember stay healthy and safe.

P.S. Even though I haven't been posting on my youtube because of finals and all the projects I have, please be sure to subscribe because I'm starting to plan some ideas for content. I probably said this a lot so please be sure to follow me on my Instagram because I'll be active and engaging with new people on there.

Until next time,

xoxo Lay 💋

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