During the Holiday season, most of us are on winter break from school. Some of us have part-time jobs or spend a lot of time sleeping and binge watching our favorite shows.
We also want to get into the holiday spirit. Here is a list of some fun ideas to do with your friends to spread some holiday cheer!
1. Cookie Swap!
Invite your best friends over and tell them to bring recipes and ingredients for their favorite holiday sweet! Spend an afternoon in the kitchen baking and listening to Christmas music. When all of the treats are finished, everyone gets to take a few of each back home! (Bonus: Make a gingerbread house while all of your treats are in the oven!)
2. Picture with Santa Claus!
Find cute matching outfits and relive your childhood by taking a classic picture with Santa with your best friends!
3. Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!
Host an ugly Christmas sweater party for all of your friends! Everyone can come dressed in their most festive outfit, even if it's not ugly! My personal favorite is the Santa dress outfits from Mean Girls!
4. Christmas Movie Marathon!
What better way to enjoy a girls night than with some wine, pajamas, and Christmas movies! Spend a night watching all of the Tim Allen Santa Clause movies. Maybe spend another night watching the Home Alone series, because who says you can have more than one girls night? Watch The Grinch, Elf, and Rudolph! Also, it's a perfect opportunity to debate about if The Nightmare before Christmas is a Christmas movie or Halloween movie?
5. Christmas Themed Photo Shoot!
Grab your best girlfriends, find some cute outfits, and some Santa hats and go take some cute pictures! If you live with your friends, maybe take this chance to use the photos and send out a cute holiday card to your friends and family!
6. Christmas Light Sight Seeing!
Make some hot chocolate and hit the road to go look at some local neighborhoods and the decorations they set up! If you live in the Baltimore/Annapolis area, 34th street and Lights on the Bay are perfect places to go! They even have Maryland themed decorations! Make a scavenger hunt out of it and divide into teams to see who can find the most things on the list. How many Santa decorations could you find? How many inflatable snowmen did you see? Bonus points for finding a decoration of The Grinch stealing lights from a house!
7. Secret Santa Gift Exchange!
The rules are simple, although you want to have at least 5-6 friends participating. Set a limit for spending (maybe $25-$30) and pick names out of a hat to determine who is buying for who! Remember it is a secret! Make some rules, like no gift cards! Put some thought into it! When it comes time to exchange gifts, pick a night go out to dinner and celebrate your friendship and the holiday together. (Tip: Before picking names, have your friends write out a short list of things they like or they might need or want. It'll help you out when shopping for them, and also ensure that they are getting something they truly need/want.)
8. White Elephant or Chinese Gift Exchange!
This is a fun game where everyone brings an anonymous gift to the party, and each person will go home with a different gift than the one they brought. This is a fun game to set themes to. Have everyone bring a gag gift, or a DIY present, it's fun to see what everyone comes up with!
9. Ice Skating, sledding, skiing, snowboarding, tubing, and snow adventures!
Ice skating is pretty much available everywhere! Even if you're not good at ice skating, it is fun to go with your friends and laugh at each other and feel silly together! If you live in a place where it snows early, break out your sleds, skis, snowboards, and tubes and make a day trip of it! If you're not brave enough for extreme snow sports, get together and build a snowman or have a snowball fight!
10. Craft Night - DIY Gifts and Ornaments!
Similar to the cookie swap, have the girls over and play some music and make some cute ornaments for your tree. You could also use this and an opportunity to make some cute gifts for your loved ones!
11. Christmas Music Lip Sync Battle!
Assemble a group of friends, pick some judges, dress a little crazy, and pretend to sing some Holiday music!
12. Shopping and Gift Wrapping!
Both shopping for and wrapping presents can be stressful during the holiday season, so why not make a night out of it! Spend a night walking around the mall and then getting together to help each other wrap the gifts! It's nice to have second opinions when trying to buy a gift and also to have some helping hands when you lose the scissors or tape for the 17th time.
Even if you and your friends celebrate different holidays, all of these ideas can be changed and adjusted to fit whichever holiday you celebrate! The point of the holiday season it to spend time with loved ones and to have a great time! So enjoy your holidays and your break from school! Spend time with your friends and family! Eat a lot of really good food, watch some fun movies, and sing a lot of songs! Happy Holidays!
