Holiday Heaven

It used to be that families had no rules about gift buying. Everyone bought for everyone else, and gifts were exchanged when the family all got together somewhere during the Christmas season.

These days, it’s more common for people to draw a name out of a hat or get assigned a person to buy for. Or the family creates a type of “white elephant” exchange instead of having family members buy for individuals in particular. So, what many families need is a fun way to exchange the gifts, whether they be for a specific person or whether they are ‘white elephant” type gifts.

If the family members drew names, there are several fun things you can do. The gifts can be hidden and clues given as to the location of the gifts. So, if you arrive at grandma’s house with your gift for Aunt Martha, you might tuck her gift into a kitchen cabinet. Then you’d create a series of clue as to here it is. You might say, “Cinnamon lurks here” or “it’s the hub of the home, but not always the home of the hub”.

The clues can be silly or deadly serious. They can be designed so someone will know where to find their present in just minutes, or designed so that it takes a series of clues to get someone right to their gift. If the group is small or the house particularly large, and the participants have the time you can always create a hunt where more than one tip is left and one tip leads to another, which leads to another until the gift is finally found.

Why should the kids have all the fun? Create some fun gift exchange ideas for adults. Whether the family is doing a name draw and exchanging regular gifts or not, you can have some good family fun with a white elephant gift exchange. How about a themed white elephant gift exchange? If the family is into fishing, you could create that as a theme. Everyone must bring a gift related to fishing (this could be anything from sporting goods items, to a singing bass that goes on the wall). It could be a hand held electronic fishing game or a board game with fishing as a theme.

In that same vein, you could create a “cooking” white elephant exchange or a camping themed gift exchange. Again, it’s more about what will please members of the family than anything. Then create some fun games for the exchange itself. Perhaps everyone draws a number and gets to pick their gifts from the pile in the middle based on their number. Perhaps you begin the game that way, but then also people to ’steal’ someone else’s gift if they choose.

You can require that the gift recipient shakes a gift, studies a gift and makes a good, educated guess as to its contents before opening it. If they are right, they can “steal” someone else’s gift, but if they are wrong, they keep theirs. Add to the silliness factor by playing a card game and dictating that people can’t get their gift and open it until they win a hand in the card game (ideally something fairly quick like poker or rummy).

The idea behind any family gift exchange should be enjoying each other’s company and enjoying the Christmas spirit. As long as it’s fun and engaging, there’s no reason why the adults in the family can’t have some fun games for exchanging gifts just the kids might.

The engagement party is a time when the families of the couple will get to know one another. In some cases, this might be the first meeting between the two families or groups of friends and any icebreaker activity will be a welcome event.

In that light, whoever plans the engagement party (likely the bride’s family, but it can be the engaged couple or anyone else who wants to plan the party) should plan a few games and activities designed to help everyone get to know everyone else.

First up is a trivia game. Create a “Trivial Pursuit” type game with questions about the bride and groom’s lives. You might contain the questions to just facts and events relating to both the bride and groom (such as how long did it take her to say “yes” when he asked, where did he propose, where did they meet, etc), or you can include questions pertaining to their lives outside of each other and before they met each other. Not only can this be fun, but also it’s an entertaining way for people to get to know each other and the engaged couple better.

One popular icebreaker that’s used at corporate functions and company parties can also work really well at engagement parties. Tape a card to each person’s back and encourage him or her to work the room, mingle with everyone and particularly try to get to know someone they have never met before. Before moving on to someone else, be sure to make a comment about the person on the card on his or her back. Partiers write an impression of that person, such as “she seems sweet” or “he knows a lot about the weather”.

This icebreaker ends when the mingling session is over. The cards are then read one by one and people not only get to know each other better, but enjoy hearing all the comments people made about them. Try to ensure that comments are complimentary or somehow presented in a positive light. Hurtful comments, obviously, are not appropriate.

If this is truly the first time many of the guests have met, then another fun game involving the wearing of cards might be in order. In this game, each guest wears a card on their front that has their name on the front and a number on the back. They don’t share with anyone what their number is. Guests mingle and chat and get to know each other over the course of the evening.

Toward the end of the evening, the cards are flipped over and the number side is shown. Everyone gets a piece of paper and writes the numbers on the paper, then tries to correspond the name of someone with their number. This fun game can be hard for people who are bad with names, but it’s fun nonetheless.

For an activity that doesn’t put people on the spot quite so much, consider letting the already marrieds help out the to-be marrieds. Place two pieces of posterboard on the wall and mark them “advice from women” and “advice from men”. Now is the time to offer advice about wedding planning, not about being married. That advice can come later. Encourage guests to offer their own wedding planning advice. The advice from older people at the party could be decidedly different from the younger couples in the group, making for an enlightening group of comments.

If you are willing to put a little time and energy into a Christmas game, this one is surefire hit. It’s called “dress Santa” and it’s funny and silly and worth having a camera round to record the fun. You might even want a camcorder as well.

Here’s how it works. Create a dress-up box with a Santa costume and other items that Santa might or might not wear. You want to have a full-bore Santa costume, so you can either rent one or purchase one if you think it will get used years after. They can be found for around $100 or maybe a little less if you buy one at a costume shop that’s used.

You’ll put the Santa suit in a large suitcase or trunk. Be sure you have as many Santa items as possible; for example, you want to have a pair of boots, gloves, a big belt, etc. Then in the trunk or suitcase, mix in other items, like jewelry, hats, socks, shoes and feather boas. It’s probably obvious where this is going.

At the Christmas party, someone volunteers to play the game. Ideally, you’ll have several volunteers so you can time people and award a prize for fastest or most interesting, or whatever works based for your party.

The chosen person gets blindfolded and stripped down to their bare essentials. No, it’s not that kind of game, but if a woman is wearing a sweater over a T-shirt and shoes, the shoes and the sweater can be removed, so she has less on her to begin with. Once the person is blindfolded, begin timing them. Tell them they must dress Santa as quickly as possible in his Santa suit only, nothing else. To spice up the game and make it more interesting, be sure to include some items in the trunk that might feel like Santa items, but aren’t. For example, you’ll have Santa’s black gloves in the trunk, but also include a pair or two of garden gloves, and Santa has a belt, but you could include other belts as well. Be sure to include several hats (even a princess hat, which might feel like a Santa hat to a disoriented participant).

Once Santa is dressed, stop the timer and take the blindfold off. Everyone can get a good laugh at the result. Santa might have his suit on, but he might also be wearing a robe. Or he might be in his suit, but with garden gloves, a rhinestone belt and a princess hat. Be sure to take pictures of your good sport and move to the next participant. It’s better if the other players aren’t in the room, since many might remember the various items in the trunk and make mental notes about what to ignore and what to use.

After the Santas are done with their dressing and the requisite pictures have been taken, decide on a winner. Is the winner the Santa who dressed in 45 seconds, or the one that wore the garden gloves, princess hat and rhinestone belt combination? It’s a tough call, but a winner must be crowned, so to speak. You can award prizes (Santa hats filled with candy are fun) or you can keep this all in fun and let the good sports know the fun is in the silly playing.

As brides get more and more creative in planning their weddings, locations weddings are becoming more and more popular. Although this might result in a smaller guest list, it can also result in some fun opportunities for activities.

Many brides like to have their weddings seaside, so they move the festivities to a beach locale, either on their local coast or somewhere more exotic like Jamaica or the Bahamas. In any event, there are several activities that can be planned around this theme. If the wedding is also a weekend event where guests will be around for more than just the wedding, the bride can plan a sailing excursion. Charter a boat for a day and bring your guests out on the water to relax, rejuvenate, and perhaps enjoy a meal.

If the wedding is in the Caribbean, how about a cooking demonstration? The bride and groom can arrange for the wedding guests to enjoy a complimentary cooking demonstration put on by the hotel or a local cook. Since much of the food the guests eat while visiting for the wedding will be different than what they eat at home, they might enjoy learning how to prepare it for home enjoyment.

Say the wedding is in Hawaii, another popular destination wedding location. Here, you can plan several activities around the location. For example, what about a luau? This could even take the place of a more formal or conventional sit-down rehearsal dinner.

In Hawaii, guests will enjoy a hula lesson. Depending on the age of your guests, be sure there is enough time between the wedding and the lesson for the resting of aching bones, in case there are any.

At the wedding itself, there are many ways to incorporate the location into the ceremony itself. At a beachside reception, you can play “pass the shell”, where a large shell is passed around and guests “listen” for some advice from the other world. Once they get a piece of advice (really something they think of themselves) they share it with the bride and groom, either verbally, or it can be written into a book for the couple.

Other pre-wedding activities can include guided tours, shopping excursions and wine tasting activities (if applicable). If you choose to include any of these activities keep in mind that the bride and groom (or their families) are expected to pay for the bulk of them. If you arrange a sailing excursion, for example, you are expected to pick up the tab for the trip. Do not tell people ahead of time that the activity will be x dollars. It’s likely that won’t sit well with them.

Since one of the great benefits of the destination wedding is that only your closest friends and family will likely surround you, you can plan some meaningful activities that you wouldn’t plan if the wedding were a larger event. For example, you might plan a slumber party night with close friends that includes movies, popcorn and drinks in your hotel room, villa or cottage, depending on where the wedding is held.

Of course, if you plan a destination wedding, for some people this might double as their vacation. In that event, you might not want to schedule too many activities but instead let people find their own activities and entertainment both before and after the wedding.

Dancing is an essential component at most wedding receptions. We look forward to the couple’s “first dance” and the bride’s special dance with her father. It’s also a place to get loose and funky, if you’re a guest or a member of the wedding party.

But what if the wedding planners decided to add some fun and surprise to the dance floor by adding fun activities there? This doesn’t mean a rousing version of the “Bunny Hop”, which, while maybe essential, is hardly unique.

There are, however, many fun games and activities you can add to your dance floor activities that are sure to be a hit.

Try a fun game of the “chicken dance”. Ok, so that doesn’t sound too original. But if most of your guests are just sitting at their tables, watching a few brave couples dancing, or just finishing their meals, you might want to get everyone up and having fun. Try this game.

The DJ announces a number. Everyone looks under his or her chair, where there is a number. Depending on the number of guests at the wedding, there might be only numbers “1″ and “2″ or more, up to 5.

So, say the DJ announces number “4″. Each person checks under their chair to see what their number is. These numbers can be written simply on a piece of masking tape and affixed to the underside of the chairs when the reception is being set up. Each “4″ in this scenario will head to the dance floor to do the chicken dance with the other “4s”. Not only does this get people out of their chairs and on to the dance floor, they get to know other wedding reception guests they might not otherwise know.

One dance floor activity that’s gaining popularity is to bring in a dance teacher for the wedding reception. As a kind of pre-dance activity, the teacher will quickly walk people through their paces on the dance floor, perhaps teaching a bit of the waltz or, for something completely different, a little bit of the tango, before the music officially begins and dancing commences.

Having a dance teacher do a bit of teaching not only livens up the reception right from the start, but it gets people out on the dance floor who might otherwise be too self-conscious normally to get out there and let it all hang out. And practically speaking, it will likely make the wedding guests feel more confident in their skills before the “official” dancing begins.

Another fun activity to get everyone on the dance floor, including even the most reticent, is something you can refer to as the “snowball” dance. This is a good way to jumpstart the dancing at the beginning of the evening.

Here’s how the “snowball” dance works. The wedding party, bride and groom included, will head to the dance floor for a fun dance. The music for this dance should be fast, something with a disco beat or a fast song that most people have at least a passing familiarity with. After a bit of wedding party dancing, the music stops. The female members of the wedding party move into the crowd and bring back one male each. The male members of the wedding party do the same, but they bring in female guests. The dancing then begins again. This is repeated until all the guests are dancing. It’s truly a snowball effect!

If you ask children what their favorite holiday is, the most likely response from most children will be Christmas, with Halloween coming in a close second. Some children will choose Halloween as their first favorite. But this holiday, with all its goblins and ghouls, likely makes the top two favorite holidays on most children’s’ lists.

To that end, then, it’s always fun to have a raucous Halloween class party. With lots of fun games and activities, and plenty of candy for prizes, it’s sure to be a hit with kids of all school ages.

For younger children how about a game of pumpkin bowling? Find some of those inexpensive plastic pumpkin treat buckets and stack them up on a hard floor. You can stack them as high as you like, but you have to start with at least three buckets. If you get many buckets, you can make a pyramid out of them. Find some lightweight plastic balls - plastic bowling balls are excellent for this. And let the kids go bowling! The kids love knocking over the pumpkin heads and all the kids who play should get a prize for this game.

Kids of all ages enjoy making mummies out of themselves and their friends. Here’s how this works. You bring in toilet paper, lots and lots of toilet paper. Divide the kids into teams of 2. When you begin timing the kids, they must wrap their friend up in the toilet paper, mummy style. The first team who is all wrapped wins. The child who’s wrapped up like a mummy can then break out of the toilet paper wrap with a scary “roar” and the game begins again so the other child can also be wrapped. Be sure to play some spooky Halloween music while this game is being played to add to the atmosphere.

Circle time! Have all the kids get in a circle and begin a spooky story. The story can begin with the classic, “It was a dark and spooky night…” and then the person next in the circle continues the story. Each child adds something to the story as it moves around the circle. If the children are young, you can keep the story on the straight and narrow by indicating no gruesome elements will be allowed. If the kids are older, you can decide how scary the story can be. Be aware that children in higher elementary grades will not only like their stories fairly scary and gruesome, but some might even add “booger” and “snot” and “throw up” elements to their story. You can set the rules ahead of time to prepare for this type of storytelling.

No game has held onto children’s interests for more years than the classic “musical chairs”. This version includes playing Halloween music (think “Monster Mash” or “Thriller” by Michael Jackson) and asking the kids to act as spooky and scary as they can while they race around the chairs. You can up the rules depending on the ages of the children. For example, for children in the lower grades you can tell them to just walk around the chairs until the music stops. As they get older, you can add challenging elements, such as make scary faces as you walk around the chairs, do the monster mash (whatever that means to the individual kid) and other things like that. You’re sure to get some creative responses.

Kids love cakewalks, but they aren’t practical in the classroom. You could, however, have a treat walk. Save enough space in the classroom for this one. Again, play some Halloween-themed music and have the kids walk around in a circle as they do for cakewalks during other school events. Instead of having them walk onto number squares or circles, however, you can have them walking onto cardboard discs that include pictures of ghosts, monsters and the like. The person running the cakewalk will stop the music and pull a matching picture out of a pumpkin head. Instead of calling “#14″, for example, as the winner of the cakewalk, it will be “ghost head” or “monster mouth”.

Decorating the Christmas tree is an event that most members of any family look forward to. It not only is a time to reflect and remember where the various ornaments came from or who made them, it is also an exciting time that really brings Christmas right into the home.

There are a variety of activities you can incorporate into bring the Christmas tree into your home. Some families enjoy singing “Oh Christmas Tree” as the tree is brought into the home. Make a fun activity of this whereby everyone has to come up with an original verse to the song (since few know the actual words). This can keep everyone entertained while someone else works to get the tree standing up straight.

Once the tree is in a stand and ready to be decorated, make a game out of the ornaments. Put all the homemade ornaments aside and work with those first. Start with the first family member and ask them who made the ornament, where did it come from? Once the details are out of the way, ask the crafter (likely a child) if they remember making the ornament. If you’re the parent, tell the child what you thought when you first saw the ornament. This is fun, since it reminds children that the things they make and bring home are meaningful to the parents.

There is always one ornament that is just ugly, or plain silly. Play “hot potato” with that ornament. Whoever gets stuck with the ugly ornament has to say one nice thing about it, such as “well, there’s a lot of glitter on it and that’s pretty”, or “Dougie made it, so I like it”. It’s a silly way to remind children to find good in everything. It might even remind them that things are just things. This is a good lesson for this time of year.

Some people use an advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas, and this is how it’s traditionally done, but there is one fun activity sure to be a hit with children. Similar to the concept in Germany (where the advent calendar originated) this involves providing one small gift for children every day until Christmas. In Germany, it’s only done for several days before Christmas, but you can do it for the 24 days of the month until Christmas arrives.

Buy tiny handled gift bags at the craft store. Buy 1 for each of your children. Have the children decorate the bags, and on each of the 24 bags, have them place a number as well, 1 through 24. As you decorate the tree, find space for each of these little bags. Because they have handles, they can hang right on the tree like an ornament, or you can tie ribbon on the handles so they have a more graceful swing. Each night, fill the right bag with a tiny prize or gift. So if it’s the night of December 14, you’ll take bag #15 (all the bags with earlier numbers will be gone) and put some little trinket in it. It might be a piece of candy, a tiny ornament for your child’s own tree, a tiny car or small eraser. The idea here is that it’s a small gift, but come morning, that’s the first activity your children will engage in - discovering what little treat you left for them the night before.

If you’re getting everyone together for Christmas dinner, you want to provide some fun activities and games in addition to just the meal. Here are some good ideas to keep the crowd in the Christmas mood and keep them busy and diverted until the meal is ready.

Guess the dinner - Have all the people who are not working in the kitchen do a smell test and try to figure out what’s on the menu for dinner. Sure, turkey or ham or roast beef might be an obvious choice and an easy one if they are traditional in your family, but what’s the potato smell? Is it a hashed brown casserole, or baked potatoes? Are they mashed with sour cream or garlic? Are there brussel sprouts for dinner or squash, or both. The winner, or the person who most closely guesses the items on the menu, gets a taste test.

Board game fun - Bring out the most kid-like board game you have. This might be one that was just opened that morning or something you already have. Get the men in the house (not the boys, but grown men) to sit down on the floor and play the game. A great picture can be had when the fathers and grandfathers are on the living room rug playing Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. Better yet, bring out a princess game and enjoy watching the men get dressed up like princesses as the game goes on. As a secondary activity, pit the kids and dads against each other in a game of monopoly or cards. The kids can play with their dads on a team or the dads can play against the kids. Either way, it’s sure to be fun.

Tablecloth - If the children are getting restless waiting for the meal, have them decorate the tablecloth. This isn’t the time, then, to put great Aunt Martha’s tablecloth on the table, but something inexpensive and yet not disposable. You can keep the tablecloth from year to year and enjoy watching the progression of the children’s art through the tablecloth. Be sure to have them use permanent markers and have them date and sign it, if they are old enough. If they’re not, date and sign it for them. You’ll want that bit of information later.

Outdoor fun - Have a fun game of “toss the hat”. Fill Santa’s hat with some candy or other small items and try to toss the hat around without the items falling out. You can have a relay with Santa’s hat where everyone wears Santa’s hat, then hands it to the next person, who has to put it on and then take if off and then hand it to the next person. How about a rousing game of football, where the goal line is made of discarded Christmas ribbon? Or a game of soccer where the soccer ball is a rolled up ball of discarded Christmas paper.

Worst presents - Who has the best story about the worst present they ever got? Before dessert have everyone share their best of the worst stories. Be sure that you don’t tell the story in front of the person who gave you the worst present! What was the most interesting present you ever got? Or the best handmade present? What was the best present that came this Christmas? Dessert isn’t handed out until everyone shares a story, good or bad.

Where’s Santa? - While eating dinner, have a fun activity going on that’s sure to delight the children. Using a Santa hat, play a game of “where’s Santa”? Surely he’s back at the North Pole by now, right? Have someone start with the Santa hat and under the table, that person passes it to someone else. Everyone tries to decide where the hat is. Whoever has the hat (they can keep it in their lap while they eat) winks at someone else when they catch their eye. If someone gets winked at, they say, “Santa’s lost!” and this continues, with the passing of the hat and the winking, until someone figures out where Santa is.

When planning Christmas games for young children, the options are endless. Make sure you provide room to run, do a little planning and the kids are sure to have a good time.

Let’s start with a few relay race ideas. Begin with a candy cane relay. Give each team 4 candy canes (and be sure to have a few more in case some break) and have the child who’s running hold the candy canes between their fingers, with the crooked part of the cane hanging over their fingers. But tell them not to use their thumbs. The canes should be just carefully perched between their fingers.

The children run to their teammate, exchange the candy canes (again, only using fingers), and that teammate runs to the other end and does the same. The game is over when only one team still has candy canes that haven’t dropped on the floor.

Another fun relay that kids love is pass the ornament. In this game, each team gets one ornament (a lightweight, basic thin glass one is fine) and a straw. They must blow through the straw to get the ornament down the line, then the next child blows on their straw to get the ornament back down the line. Make sure each child has a fresh straw, as you don’t want everyone to get sick.

This next simple relay game can be played with just about anything that signifies Christmas. You could have the children pass a Santa hat (perhaps requiring them to wear the hat as they run down the line) or have them wear Christmas socks that they then have to take off and get to the next child during the relay.

“Santa Says” is a fun game that all children will know how to play because it’s just like “Simon Says”. Before playing it, confirm that each child is familiar with “Simon Says” and then create a series of orders from “Santa”, like “Santa says, touch your toes”, “Santa says bend your knees” and so on. But sometimes leave the “Santa says” part off and trick the children. Always a popular game!

Young children love the “freeze dance” which is often played in preschool and kindergarten. Only in this game, you create a Christmas freeze dance: here you play some Christmas music, let the children do a little dance, then turn the music off and the children must “freeze”. If there will be several sit-down games played at the party, this is a great way to let the children use some energy before they have to sit down and focus on the other games.

Young children can play the “clue” game as long as the questions are kept to their knowledge of various things surrounding Christmas. The game is played like this: the teacher gives a series of clues about something Christmas related and keeps giving clues until someone shouts out the answer. It might go something like this:

Answer: Santa’s sleigh
Clue: I’m thinking of something big
Clue: It helps Santa on Christmas Eve
Clue: It holds a lot of presents
Clue: It’s very fast

You keep giving clues until he children figure out the answer. Since these are young children, don’t give clues that are too difficult or beyond their knowledge.

Kids love toss games, so why not create a snowball toss game at Frosty’s belly? Get or make a large cardboard cutout of Frosty the Snowman and cut a hole in his stomach. You can create snowballs out of several things. Take plastic bags and put mini marshmallows inside, or use Styrofoam balls. If you use the latter, don’t make the children throw the “snowballs” very far since the Styrofoam won’t go that far. Have the children stand a distance back from Frosty (you can determine this depending on the age of the children and space you have available) and have them toss the snowballs into Frosty’s tummy. First one to get all 3 snowballs in the tummy wins a prize!

If you’re planning a Christmas party for a group of elementary-age children, there are a myriad of really fun games you can include. Be sure to have lots of prizes and take lots of pictures because some of the games can be silly!

To get the kids moving around, start with the “fill the stocking” game. In this game, create teams so there are at least 3 people and no more than perhaps 6 people on each team. Have a stocking for each team. Place the stockings on the wall and have also a bowl of candy and spoons. The first person on each team will put the spoon in their mouth (backwards, so the bowl of the spoon is sticking out) and get some candy out of the bowl. Still holding their spoon in their mouth, they must walk or run to the stocking on the wall and get the candy in the stocking. They run back to the line and the next child has a turn (each child should have his or her on spoon). The game continues until the candy bowl is empty.

The obvious prize for the stocking game is a big bowl of candy!

Another active game is an “unwrap the game” relay. Provide two piles presents at one end of the room (these can be presents with real teats inside, or “dummy” wrapped presents). The children are divided into two teams and a relay is created. One person runs to the stack of gifts, unwraps it, throws away the paper and runs back. Then the next child in line runs up, unwraps a gift, throws away the paper and runs back. If the paper lands outside the trash can, the child must run back and put it back in the trashcan before returning to the line and allowing another person to take a turn.

If these to games are played first the kids might want a little rest. Now’s the time to play a sit-down Christmas party game, like “remember this”. Get a large cookie sheet or baking tray and fill it with Christmas-themed items. You might include an ornament, a candy cane, a Santa hat, garland, ribbon, etc. There should be at least 20 items on the tray. Give each child about 20 seconds to look at the items, then cover the tray and remove it from sight. Give the children another 20-30 seconds to remember everything they saw on the tray. Have them quickly write don their guesses. The prize is for whoever remembers the most items!

Another good sit down game and one that’s also a learning game is a word find game. Provide children with a list of Christmas words and have them find other words within those words. For example, if one word is “reindeer” they might find in, deer, red, den, and so on. Longer words are best, so think of words like Christmas, snowballs, poinsettia, holly berry and the like).

Children love games that involve sitting in a circle and having fun that way. Here’s a “circle” game children are sure to love. This tests their ability to remember little details about other people, like their voice. Have handy a sleigh, either one cut out of cardboard or a small one purchased a gift or dollar store. Blindfold one child and have another child hold the sleigh. The child with the sleigh calls out to the blindfolded child something like this:

Santa, where’s your sleigh?
Someone’s come and taken it away.
Who has it? Who?

The blindfolded child has to guess who has the sleigh. Give the child 3 chances to get it right before giving the sleigh and blindfold to other children.

For another sit down game, give each child a piece of paper and a pencil. Tell them to close their eyes and then tell them what to draw. Give them the shapes, but don’t tell them exactly what they are trying to draw (though most children will figure it out). So, first tell them to draw three circles, with the largest being on the bottom and the smallest on the top. Then tell them to draw dots for eyes, and buttons for a coat. Keep going until you have described a snowman. Then have the children open their eyes to see what they have actually drawn. Award a prize for the drawing that most closely resembles a snowman.