Eight Things to Do With Your Family In December

It's a time to snuggle up under blankets, to crunch through frosty fields and to gather green holly and red berries to decorate homes for winter celebrations says Kate Hodges

We're making presents, and baking sweet biscuits to fill our homes with seasonal and spicy smells. Find things to do as the days darken.

DIY Gifts

We can always do with some home-made gifts inspiration; it’s easy to get stuck in a rut! Why not spend December’s cosy family table time creating presents for friends and family? 

Foodie gifts

Citrus salt is simple to create and looks stylish in a glass jar. Great for foodie friends! 

Deeply indulgent, and better fresh, Florentines pop in a colourful box. That’s if you can resist scoffing as you bake. 

Spicy, warming chai tea lattes are always welcome. Create your own blend, package it with a tea ball and give to your grateful recipients! 

Beauty and bath

Chocolate lip balm smells delicious and keeps dry winter skin at bay. Try this recipe and pour into little tins or jars. 

Layered red-and-white sugar scrubs look candy cane festive and are a bathtime treat. And they’re super easy to make, even for kids!

Love a fizzy, sense-tingling shower steamer? They’re easy to make; and these lavender-scented versions are just heavenly. 

Pine needle oil brings yuletide green scent into the house; use it in candles, as a hair elixir, soothing salve or in a hot steam to ease coughs and colds. Here’s how to make your own. 

Easy for Tiny Kids 

Use this white clay recipe to create nature-inspired ornaments. 

These Scandinavian-inspired felt hearts are simple and sweet. 

Or make enough pine-cone elves to string on a garland! 

Free Festive Fun

Christmas is expensive. Even with the 5-gift-rule, second-hand gifting, and budget festive dinners, it’s still a wallet-bashing time. But luckily free and cheap Christmas fun is easy to find. 

Try your local museum or gallery for Christmas workshops, parties and general festive spirit-boosting; the Museum of London has a line-up of events that include a sensory, musical exploration of a frost fair for babies, you can decorate gingerbread and dance in The Baltic’s excellent Front Room space,  Liverpool Museums have workshops, concerts and parties, and there are concerts, bird-food decoration workshops and a free family ceilidh at Kelvingrove in Glasgow. 

Wales’ museums have a blizzard of workshops, free film screenings and parties throughout December, while Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum has a series of live science shows themed around light, and their Light Lab is back; the place to make light perform tricks, create colour and find sparks of creativity. Down in Bristol, the Museum and Art Gallery is the place for free drop-in activities, story times and silent discos. 

New Brew-m

December 15th is International Tea Day. We’ll take any excuse to lie in bed with a cuppa, but why not learn more about the nation’s favourite hot drink? There’s a great history of it here, and a darker look at its links to the slave and drugs' trades here. 

Why not try making a new-to-you brew? There are some interesting ideas here; Korean-style roasted corn tea, Thai iced tea, sage tea and orange mint tea. 

Or try foraging for plants to make your own blends; chamomile, nettle, heather, mallow and yarrow; you’ll find instructions here. 

Alternatively, try adding tea to your recipes; try builders tea ice-cream, Earl Grey yoghurt cake, or ochazuke; the Japanese dish made by pouring tea over plain white rice. 

Shock and Awe

The Christmas holidays are prime walking time. Escape the central heating, mince pie bloat and post-festive slump with a family yomp. This year, we’re being inspired US scientist Dacher Keltner who coined the term Awe Walks. He says that wonder can positively affect our bodies, our relationships with others and how we see and interact with the world around us.

He says, “Finding awe can be as simple as pausing and noticing the world around us — from something as seemingly small as a newly blossomed flower to something as big as a sunset stretched across the entire sky. Other sources of awe include what he refers to as “moral beauty” — witnessing the kindness or goodness or generosity of other people — or listening to music, seeing art and contemplating big ideas, all of which can happen during an “awe walk.”

Awe walk mileage will vary from family to family. Perhaps you might climb a mountain, or take a walk along a blustery cliff. You may venture out at night to see the stars in a clear sky, watch the sun set or take in a dramatic, lit-up city scape. Awe walks can be as simple as wandering in the park and noticing other people laughing or finding friendly dogs to pat. Or perhaps you might take down your dusty Ordnance Survey map to find a Roman ruin you’ve never visited or a new footpath along a hill crest. 

Keltner recommends conscious breathing, paying attention to your surroundings, and limiting distractions (leave your phones at home). Focus on the present and feel the throb of awe coursing through you! Find some recommendations for stunning walks here and here and listen to Dacher Keltner's incredible The Science of Happiness podcasts here.

Ice, Ice Babies 

It’s cold! Cold enough, perhaps, to make ice ornaments. And if it isn’t, most of us have a freezer. Gather red berries, pine-needles, shells and pretty branches and twigs, add water and freeze in dishes. Add a piece of string before freezing so you can hang them from trees or fences outside. Full instructions here. 

Or freeze your finds and water using one large container and one smaller and use a tea light to make an ice lantern. Find instructions here or watch this tutorial. 

Horsing Around

The Mari Lwyd is a - slightly scary - Welsh tradition in which a horse skull is draped in bells, greenery and coloured ribbons. In December and January, accompanied by singers and musicians, Mari Lwyd is taken from house to house, asking to come in for food and drink.

Why not make your own Mari Lwyd costume from card or papier mache and parade through the streets,  your garden or living space? Or perhaps you could use the terrifying looks of the figure to inspire some fire-side stories? 

There are free Mari Lwyd and Hunting of the Wren performances at St Fagan's Museum of History in Wales during December. 

Light In The Dark

The winter solstice takes place on Saturday 21st, as the sun rises. It’s the darkest day of the year, and a time to celebrate reaching the middle of winter, a chance to reflect on the beauty and magic of the season before the chaos of Christmas. 

Perhaps you might head to a favourite spot to watch the sun rise or travel to a stone circle. Winter Solstice at Stonehenge is a magical celebration of the shortest day. There is free, managed open access to the site; a rare chance to get among the stones and witness them up-close. 

Get there well before sunrise and join the druids, revellers and curious watching the sun rise. Avebury is a slightly less crowded option, or, if you’re lucky, you might be able to book a place on the tour at Orkney’s Maeshowe tomb. Alternatively, why not visit a stone circle new to you?

Other Yule and solstice events include storytelling and meditation at the wonderful Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, sunrise-watching at Glastonbury Tor, Brighton’s noisy and light-bedecked Burning The Clocks parade and fun at Cornwall’s Montol Festival where the town’s population dresses in mock formal clothes, skulls and masks and ‘guises’ and performs plays, skits, songs and dances.

Fire, Fire!

Welcome in 2025 with sparks, flames and more than a little hint of danger. New Year fire festivals bring light and a lot of life to the darkest months. 

The streets of Allendale in Northumbria are packed for the Tar Bar’l festival, where 45 people in fancy dress carry whiskey barrels filled with burning hot tar in a procession that ends in a bonfire. 

Up in Biggar, in Lanarkshire, a bonfire is lit every Hogmanay at 9pm. It’s a tradition that dates back to pagan times and is believed to ward off evil spirits and even took place during the blackouts of WW2, although it was limited to a candle in a tin. 

There are pipes, fireworks and floats at Comrie’s annual Flambeaux event, which climaxes in a torchlit midnight parade. 

If you can get on to the High Street of the small Scottish town of Stonehaven, there are major thrills to be had. 40 people walk up and down the road, swinging flaming balls about their heads. It’s spectacular, thrilling, and more than a little nerve-wracking! 

Back next month with some inspiring ideas for you and your family to start a new year.

Wishing you a very happy festive season!