When the weather outside is frightful and you’ve binge-watched everything there is to stream, it’s time to get creative before cabin fever sets in!
From making your own ornaments to playing professional baker and chef extraordinaire, here are 12 fun things to do indoors this winter.
- Record A Social Media Dance Video
Get in on the buzziest social media trend of all and make a dance video with your housemates. Select a trending song that everyone likes, practice the choreography, and finally hand-pick some eye-catching outfits and get to work recording your soon-to-be-viral vid. Whether you choose to actually post it or not is entirely up to you…
- Make and Paint Salt Dough Tree Ornaments
Get crafty and make your own custom tree ornaments – plus some extras for holiday gifts! Salt dough ornaments are super easy to make. Here’s how: combine 4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of table salt, and 1.5 cups of water. Then knead and roll out your dough. Using festive cookie cutters, create your ornament shapes and bake in an oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 90 minutes to two hours. Pro Tip: Use a skewer to make your string hole for hanging on the tree, and let the ornaments cool off completely before painting.
- Write Letters To Santa
Why not make writing to Santa an extra special experience this year? Stock up on some festive paper, oversized envelopes, and Christmas-colored pens. Then get the fire going and make some hot cocoa with marshmallows. If you live somewhere without a chimney (like an apartment), create a special Santa key with a name tag and instructions. Drop it in the envelope along with your letter.
- Have A Holiday Movie Marathon
No cozy Christmas is complete without an epic movie marathon. Decorate the TV room with twinkle lights and plush blankets, get into festive pajamas, and pop the popcorn! If you can’t decide on what to watch first, let everyone cast their vote and pick the order out of a hat.
- Throw A Family Game Night
If a little more interactivity is your cup of tea, plan a family game night. Whether you bust out the tried-and-true classic board games or splurge on a few new and buzzy games, there’s nothing more entertaining than a little friendly competition and lots of laughs with the ones you love.
- Bake Until You Drop
Spend a gusty, subzero day baking up a storm and stockpile goodies in your freezer for all your upcoming holiday parties. Try these Chocolate Peanut Butter Hearts, Banana Chocolate Brownies and this Peanut Butter Fudge.
- Have A Cook-Off With A Festive Theme
Pretend you’re a professional TV chef for a day and invite other foodie family members or friends to compete. Start by picking a theme—perhaps it’s an ingredient or a seasonal dish—and hit the market to shop for your ingredients within a time limit. At home, get to work creating your masterpiece in your “stations.” Don’t forget to bring in your judges to taste test and crown a winner when the buzzer sounds.
- Plan Your Next Vacation!
Cold-weather can lead to dreaming of getting away somewhere warm. Don’t fight the temptation! Bust out the spreadsheet and hone in on several bucket list destinations. Write a pros and cons list, research sites to visit, restaurants to try, and rental or hotel accommodations to get you excited about your next getaway!
- Have a Living Room Spa Day
Get your holiday glow-up on from the comfort of home by indulging in a relaxing afternoon of at-home spa treatments. Light some candles, put a sheet mask on, soak your feet in bath salts, and cap it all off with a candle-lit bath followed by a plush robe and slippers.
- Redecorate A Room
Breathe new life into your space ahead of the holiday festivities by revamping a room. Do some research on your favorite inspirational website and then go to work rearranging furniture, swapping out decor, and tinkering with various types of lighting to bring a new ambiance to the space. Don’t forget a few glittery, twinkly Christmas touches.
- Make A Photo Album
Printing out hard copies of photographs is practically a lost art but there are plenty of services out there that allow you to select the best images from your smartphone and compile them into collectible books (like this one or this one). It’s a great way to engage the whole family and take a walk down memory lane.
- Visit An Indoor Local Attraction
Plan an outing to an attraction in your city or town and take in some culture at a museum, art gallery, science center, aquarium, or attend an indoor concert. For example, search “What to do in [Insert the town or city you live near] this weekend” to get a full list of exhibitions, musical performances, and more happening near you at any given time.
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