What to do during the New Year holidays with the whole family: 10+ options
New Year's holidays are a rare opportunity to slow down, spend time with your family, and finally do what you don't have enough energy for on weekdays: from playing at home with children and winter walks to creative hobbies, self—development, and digital respite from gadgets. To prevent these days from turning into endless watching of the tape on your smartphone, it is worthwhile to outline in advance a list of activities for home, outdoors and recreation "for yourself". All the details are in the Izvestia article.
New Year's Eve games and entertainment with children at home
Holidays can easily be turned into a family marathon of home entertainment if you come up with several formats in advance that will be interesting for both children and adults. Classes where each family member is not just a spectator, but a full participant in the process are especially beneficial.
Houses can be arranged:
family movie evening with a selection of winter cartoons and fairy tales, blankets and hot chocolate;
a home concert or karaoke, where children prepare mini-performances, and parents act as a jury.;
Board game and puzzle championship with small prizes for winning;
culinary experiments: baking pies, gingerbread or cookies with joint icing.
To make children less attracted to gadgets, you can offer them creative tasks and mini‑quests.
make a "wish jar" where everyone will put their plans for 2026, and read them at the end of the holidays.;
organize a home photo shoot with costumes and homemade decorations — then it's easy to assemble a family photo album or a wall of memories from the pictures.
What to do outdoors with the whole family
Winter air and activity help to survive a busy festive table and support the immune system, so at least part of the holidays should be spent outside the house. It is not necessary to travel far: most winter activities are available in the courtyard or in the nearest park.
The simplest and most favorite formats:
sledding, ice skating and cheesecakes on a safe, gentle slope;
modeling of snowmen and snow figures, "snow Olympic games" with relay races and throwing snowballs at the target;
an ice rink in the courtyard or a city ice rink where you can ride with the whole family and take a beautiful photo as a keepsake.;
Walk through the snow-covered park or cross-country skiing with bird watching and animal tracks.
To prevent walking from becoming a boring exercise routine, add an element of play or exploration.
Turn an ordinary outing into a mini‑quest: count the steps, look for certain colors of lanterns or decorations, mark the most unusual snow figures.;
take a thermos of hot tea with you and arrange an impromptu winter picnic, observing simple safety rules and warm clothes.
Winter hobbies and creativity
New Year's holidays are a good time to start or "reanimate" hobbies that you haven't gotten around to during the year. Creativity and new skills help to switch from routine and reduce stress levels after a stressful December marathon.
Interesting creative directions:
"photo hunt" for winter: walks in order to take down a dozen interesting doors, storefronts, Christmas trees or winter details of the city;
keeping a paper diary or yearbook, where you can record the results of the year, plans and short notes about each day of the holidays;
Needlework: knitting, embroidery, soap making, wool felting or simple DIY crafts for the home.
If you want to combine rest and study, short online courses will help.
Many platforms offer holiday intensive courses in drawing, photography, foreign languages or cooking, which can be completed in a few days without a tight schedule.
It is important not to overload yourself: just one small course is enough, which brings pleasure and a sense of personal growth, and not a new "checklist of responsibilities".
Useful things to do during the holidays: sorting things out, hobbies, self‑development and digital detox
Vacations are a convenient moment for a gentle "restart" of habits, when neither work nor study require constant online presence. It is important to find a balance between relaxation and the feeling that the holidays have brought benefits, rather than disappearing into the endless scrolling of the news feed.
Useful things that usually don't have enough time for:
wardrobe and toy sorting with sorting of items for charity, sale or recycling;
putting things in order in photo archives and documents: sorting, backup, and deletion of excess;
returning to the "abandoned" hobbies of playing a musical instrument, reading paper books, and playing sports.
Digital detox can be made a family rule, not a punishment.
arrange for certain "gadget—free windows" - for example, the morning hour or the entire evening before bedtime, when phones and tablets remain in another room.;
Replace this time with board games, joint walks, reading aloud and creativity — children are more willing to agree to the limitation of the screen if they see that adults also follow these rules.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
