Will you be babysitting grandchildren a lot during their Christmas break? Are you looking for ways to save money while enjoying plenty of fun activities for grandparents and grandchildren? Will great-grandma and great-grandpa be around? Here are some fun ideas to incorporate all that and more:

1. Start off with some fun Advent traditions, whether new or old, including making Advent crafts like a cute calendar, gathering round the Advent Wreath, lighting the candles, having a fun Christmas Carol sing together, and reading the Christmas story.
2. Play with children's nativity sets.  There are several cute ones including this one and the “What God Wants for Christmas” nativity set by Family Life and we enjoy doing this several times each Christmas. 
3. Movie time. At Home! If your grandkids enjoy Veggie Tales, there is a brand new Christmas DVD out, Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving along with Fruitcake Christmas from Hermie and Friends by Max Lucado. You might also enjoy some fun holiday specials like the Santa Clause trilogy or Miracle on 34th Street. Make a big bowl of popcorn and snuggle up with those cute grandchildren to watch a few of your favorites together. Turning down the lights can lend a a super theater effect.
4. If you haven’t already done so, this is the perfect time to make Christmas Tree Ornaments for family and friends.
5. Have fun playing together with familiar old board games like Sequence or  Monopoly, or give something new a try like . (For younger kids – the Gobblet Junior Board Game is great! )
6. Put together puzzles. If you don’t have any new ones, check out local thrift stores for discounted ones. Goodwill offers exchanges, so if you buy one and find it missing pieces, you can return it with no problem. They are definitely one of my favorite ways to save money. 
7. Play cards. Either old familiar games like Crazy Eights and Hearts or learn some new card games.
8. Before the kids come over, head for the library and stock up on some great books to read to them, such as Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys, all by Louisa May Alcott; The Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis; and  The Boxcar Children mystery books set by Gertrude Chandler Warner. For the younger ones, all of the Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy Parish are often easily available and your grandkids of all ages will love them. You might check out some interesting holiday stories as well. Librarians will often gather their collection of Christmas books all together in one area to make it easy to pick and choose.
9. Provide paper, pencils, and stickers and have them create their own story books. Maybe they could write a story about an adventure set in wild and wooly snowy holiday weather.
10. Plan a scavenger hunt around the house, using clues you’ve prepared in advance. Have some fun surprises at the end of it. Either cute toys from the Dollar Store or yummy Christmas Sugar cookies. For that matter, combine the hunt with a fun time of having cookies ready to make with your grandchildren, either by having a Sugar Cookie recipe or refrigerator sugar cookies at the end of it.
11. Speaking of those yummy and easy Christmas sugar cookies, after you've baked them, have some sugar cookie cutters, sprinkles, frosting, and decorations ready and let them have fun decorating them for Christmas. I'm already looking forward to doing that again with my grandkids this year. I'm definitely going to cut them smaller!
12. Have an indoor picnic. Move the furniture around a bit, spread a blanket on the living room floor, use paper plates for easy clean up, and enjoy a peanut butter and jelly picnic without any ants. Of course, if you live in an area where the only white Christmas is on TV, it might even be warm enough to picnic outside. In which case, I’d add a Wiffle Ball and Bat to the basket for a fun time after the food.
13. Weather permitting, take a walk…Anywhere!  Around the yard, around the block, just enjoy walking, chit chatting, and spending some time together without the bustling noise of video games, televisions, or phones
14. Again, weather permitting, go to the local park, playground, garden path, or whatever you have available for children in your area with no admission fees!  In fact, your local school playground should be open during school breaks and it’s much more fun to play at school when you don’t HAVE to be there.
15. If your weather is more along the lines of that white Christmas, have a snowman building contest ending in a fun and friendly snowball fight.
16. You know that video game they like to play?  Play it with them. I used to play Mario Brothers with my kids all the time and we loved it! Of course, they usually beat me, but that was half the fun. I don’t know if my eyes can handle these much smaller DS’ that are so popular, but I’m going to give it a try one of these days.
17. Play hide and seek.  It’s a classic that never goes out of fashion.

The first 11 ideas are practical for involving our senior parents as they involve easy activities for the elderly. They will enjoy the time with their great-grandkids and when they get tired out, they can rest and you can have fun with the noisier and more vigorous activities for grandparents and their grandchildren. Whatever you decide to do, treasure these moments, as you build special holiday family memories and create fun new traditions with your precious grandkids.

Kaye

Christmas is a time for cheerful decorations and bright Christmas tree ornaments and lights to brighten hearth, home and yard. For many of us in the Sandwich Generation, the gaily colored leaves have disappeared, leaving a stark simplicity that, while beautiful is also a bit cold looking. Our decorations bring warmth and beauty back, cheering senior parents, grandchildren, and ourselves.

Our family has gone back and forth between two different plans for decorating. One I "borrowed" from a dear friend. We enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving, then spend the rest of the weekend busily decorating and getting the house all ready. The beauty of this plan is it's all done quickly and if there are any caregiving crises that arise, you still have everything done and giving a bit of cheer to a difficult situation.

My other favorite plan is to set out all the boxes in one, out-of-the-way area and we set up the tree. Then, each night after my children went to bed I would put out one, two, or three new items. Christmas tree ornaments, wall hangings, cheerful snowmen, and more. My kids would wake up and excitedly search until they had found all the new items. It was a fun way to celebrate during the Advent preparation for Christmas. It would be a bit tougher to do now since my grandchildren don't live with me. They're over often enough that I think they would get a kick out of it. Then again, I'm not sure my senior mom would appreciate having the boxes open for so long. But for any of you who have been so busy with senior care giving and grandparenting that you haven't had a chance to decorate, this could be an easy and fun way to do it, one or two steps at a time.

How about you? Do you have a fun tradition for decorating during Advent and Christmas? Are you able to incorporate the grandkids in it? Do they help you with putting up your Christmas tree ornaments?  We'd love to hear.

For more fun Advent and Christmas preparation ideas, be sure to visit Floss' site at Troc Broc and Recup. There you're sure to find an interesting read AND a list of several other blogs who are all part of A Pause in Advent.

Grandkids and Christmas are such a sweet combination! One of our favorite Christmas traditions is making Christmas presents for their parents, grandparents, and each other. My local grandkids and I have already started and are taking our time. I’m looking forward to visiting my long distance grandkids before Christmas and having a fun weekend doing a bunch with them all at once.

A bunch of what you might ask? This year we’re sticking with the same grandma game plan as last year. I went to Michael’s, which is my favorite place for art and craft supplies, and bought a bunch of cute wooden Christmas tree ornaments and some fresh new art supplies. Since my grandkids are still pretty young, our needs are pretty simplistic – kids’ scissors, washable Crayola markers, and glue sticks. As they grow, though, I’m sure I’ll be getting more interesting kids craft items.

We have had fun for the past couple of weeks, coloring and decorating one Christmas ornament each time they visit. They each chose one ornament for themselves, as well, to start them off on their own collection of Christmas tree ornaments. I did this with each of my kids, and they still enjoy the ornaments they made and/or received each year. One very important tip – make sure you put their initials on the back of each Christmas ornament, along with the name of the recipient. I also like to put the date on the back. It's amazing how quickly we forget just a couple of years down the road.

I’m watching the sales ads closely right now. When I head to the opposite coast to visit my long distance grand-sweeties, I’ll either take more Christmas ornaments I found here on sale, or I’ll stop and pick them up there, depending on how good the sale is and how full my suitcase gets!

Christmas Day is only one day out of the year. Having fun with your grandkids making Christmas ornaments, cute Christmas decor, and delicious Christmas cookies stretches the fun out wonderfully and creates such delightful family memories! How about you? What are your favorite activities for grandparents and grandchildren during the holiday season? We'd love to hear. And for more fun grandkid ideas, be sure to sign up for the SandwichINK free email.