A Christmas Vacation Survival Guide

When I pictured Christmas vacation, I pictured serene children playing happily with their toys in front of the freshly blockaded fireplace, tree lit in the background, enjoying my hot chocolate in peace and quiet.... ok, who was I kidding? In all of the hustle and bustle (read: moving a month before Christmas, going to Florida a week before Christmas, and ridiculous amount of out-of-town appointments), I completely spaced on what do during Christmas vacation itself.

not sitting watching this all day

Any half-hearted thoughts of playdates, dinners, and visits to the museum went out the window when everyone woke up on Christmas Eve boiling hot and coughing. Call Santa; he may want to put on a mask. We are Sick.

Christmas itself went off without a hitch, but sickness in our house means a two-week all-stop on contact with Infection Sources (aka the Outside World), so instead of getting a Hippopotamus for Christmas we were getting Quarantine.

By dinnertime Christmas Day ADHD had reared its ugly head, and Hubby and I knew that we needed a Plan. What do you do when you have three kids, two adults, one house, and nine days of quarantine looming ahead of you like an insurmountable juggernaut?

Well, if you're us, you decide that what you need is a dictated schedule of activity alternated with quiet (aka playing games of tag, crafts, and then watching TV while the meds kick in) otherwise known as a routine. Except that we were still unpacking, had nothing to occupy our son's hands, and I'd used all of our sit-down crafts on Christmas Eve.

As soon as the sun rose on Boxing Day morning, I grabbed a few Christmas gift cards and made an emergency run to Michael's Craft Store for some cheap grab-bag supplies to keep our oldest son occupied. I made off with some kinetic sand, shovels, foam crafting supplies, markers, grab-and-go bags, colouring books, bouncy ball activities, and stickers.

saved by the crafts!

Then I spent some quality time on the MacBook, first developing a Master Schedule, then making friends with Google to find and print out free PECS to make a visual schedule for the kiddo. We had An Activity by letting the kiddo help cut and glue the pictures to the page.

PECS schedule

Finally, we put it all together and voila! The Christmas Vacation Survival Guide!


So far its been working out well. We've baked lemon meringue pie, coloured, crafted, had a couple of visits to the doctor's just to check on the croup, built a Lego set, had some hot chocolate, watched a bit of Baby Einstein and a LOT of Rescue Bots.

making bouncing balls while sick over Christmas

There have a few meltdowns, but having a bag full of brand-new colourful activities has been invaluable.

But never fear, Mildly Extreme Moms and Dads! Soon it will be January, so until then...

Happy New Year!