Well…we got a little caught up in our holiday programming, and sort of abandoned our holiday countdown.  But look at how much fun we were having!

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

In my family, the holidays meant all of us piling into the car and driving for hours to visit family all over the province.  It’s funny, looking back on it, I remember some of those car rides as vividly as some Christmas mornings.  We’d sing songs and tell stories and play games.  Sometimes my dad would get so caught up in our holiday cheer, that he’d even sing a song or two.  He’s not really a singer.

The other day we found the best puzzle challenges for long car rides (or plane rides, too).  They’re called Magnetic Travel Games and they’re awesome.  You need to place four magnetic pieces to solve the puzzle, but you really have to think through where you place them, because each placement affects where you can place the other pieces.  There are different sets for different ages, all the way from 5 to 11. Our favourite is Busy Bugs.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

If you’ve ever been to bookclub at the Lyceum, you’ll know that Christianne is an incredible storyteller.  I once asked her how she gained her skills, and she told me it was just practice.  That seems to be the answer to a lot of questions, doesn’t it?

If you’d like to practice your storytelling abilities as a family, we recommend investing in a pack of Storyworld Cards.  These cards play a bit like a game (did we mention we like games?).   Each card has a character, an obstacle or a location on them and they’re beautifully illustrated.  You get dealt a hand and you must use the cards in your hand to begin to tell a story.   The next person to play adds to your story using the cards in his or her hand.

Can we get back to how beautiful the cards are?  The illustrations are wonderfully details and many cards have clues in them about where you might take your card.  My favourite has a pirate on it, but in the background you can see a hot air balloon.

The other great thing about these sets is that they come with guide books that introduce you to the tools of storytelling.   Very helpful.
There are four sets of cards to choose from, each with a different theme.  I can’t decide between Legends of the Sea and Tales from the Haunted House.

If you like this suggestion, you may also like Writers’ Workshops at the Lyceum.  We run workshops for students as young as five, because there’s no such thing as too young to tell a good story.  More information is available on our website.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

You can’t have too many games nights.  We’ve done a few studies.  It’s actually impossible.

Our last games suggestion was about word games, but this one is about abstract strategy games.  There are lots of important lessons lying behind strategy games.  You have to choose between being defensive and being offensive.  Every player has a different style of play.  You have to adapt to different strategies.

Two games that particularly inspire this sort of thinking are Nexos and Blokus, both created by Bernard Tavitian.  The games work on the same concept of manipulating abstract pieces to take control of space.  Both games involve a high level of strategy. Which also means, once your opponent knows your strategy they’ll adapt theirs.

Both games are more challenging with two players, but more fun with four.

If you like this suggestion, bother Christianne to host another family games night at the Lyceum in the new year.  You can email her at lyceum@christiannehayward.com

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

Mini canvas boards are very inexpensive at the dollar store, but give art projects that little something extra.  We love the effect of three of these small boards placed side by side to form a triptych.

Okay…enough generalities.  The project for today may require a little bit of shopping on your part, but the most of the supplies will be able to be used again and again.  You’ll need to get each member of your family a canvas board.  You’ll also need some gel pastels.

Can we just take a bit of an aside to tell you how much we like products by Djeco?  They’re an Parisian craft company that makes amazingly high quality products. Everything we’ve used by them has been first rate.  And as an aside to the aside, we think their stickers, paper products, or scratch art kits would make excellent stocking stuffers.  Kidsbooks stocks many of their products.

Back to the point.  Get some gel pastels (preferably by Drejco) and have each member of your family colour their canvas boards.  You don’t want to use too many colours, just two or three.  Wet a paint brush and use it to smudge the pastels. Let it dry.  This will be your background.

Then, from paper, bits of wood, or even magazines, cut out some shapes to glue them on top of your background.  You may want to decide on a theme for your works of art together, or you can just let everyone do their own thing.

If you’re feeling really fancy you can finish the whole thing off with a quick spray of clear gloss finish.

There you have it.  Beautiful pieces of art that you can give as a gifts (or keep for yourself).

If you like this suggestion, you may also like any of the Literature and Art classes at the Lyceum.  There’s one for preschoolers and two for primary students.   More information is available on our website.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

This idea was inspired by the book Small Beauties by Elvira Woodruff.  In the book, a small child collects objects that remind her of her extended family and sews them into the hem of her skirt.  Then, when she goes on a journey to a new place, the objects become place holders that allow her to remember when she’s been and tell the stories of the people she loves there.

As a family, you could do something similar.  Find tiny objects that remind you of spending the holidays together and collect them in a box.  Before placing each object in the book, have someone in your family tell it’s story.  You can keep these objects and bring them out each year at the holiday time to tell their stories again.  You can even add to them over the years.

If you like this suggestion, bring a special bead or small object to our beading workshop on December 21.  We’ll help you incorporate the object into a beautiful necklace.  You could even bring an object that is significant to a loved one – then you can give the object and it’s story as a very special gift!  More information about the program is available here.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation has transformed Stanley Park, the Bloedel Conservatory and VanDusen Garden into twinkling wonderlands.  Get out together to enjoy the lights.  More information is available on the Park Board’s website.

Like this suggestion?  You may also like our Lights, Lights, Lights! holiday program which looks at festivals of light around the world.  It takes place on December 13.  More information is available on our website.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

Buy a white mug for each member of your family and a pen like this and have each person decorate their own mug.

Once you’ve each created your design, let the mugs dry for 24 hours and then place them in a cold oven, heat the oven to 300F and bake for 35 minutes.  This will set the paint and make it dishwasher safe.  Amazing.

Like this suggestion?  You may also like our Paint Your Own Teapot workshop on December 13.  More information here.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

We can never get enough books at the Lyceum, and this applies to holiday books as well.  Another new favourite this year is The Perfect Christmas by Eileen Spinelli.  In a series of charming rhyming stanzas, the book contrasts two families with two different approaches to Christmas.  One family seems inspired by Martha Stewart – matching ornaments, elegant treats and a perfect Christmas tree chopped down in the country, while the other reminds me more of my family – mismatched, handmade and by the seat of their pants.

Our favourite stanza?

Abigail Archer’s poodle
eats lamb chops from a mat
that’s stitched with “Merry Christmas”
He wears a santa hat.

Just a heads up, we feel the ending could perhaps be more strongly stated.  The message that it doesn’t matter how you celebrate the holidays as long as you celebrate with the people you love is an important one and in a few recent tellings we found that it was a bit lost on younger readers.  Perhaps you can write your own ending, or at least spend a bit of time talking it through when the story is over.

The rest of the book is so hilarious, it’s worth the little extra effort.

Like this suggestion?  Join us for Holiday Stories and Ornaments this coming Wednesday to make ornaments worthy of Abigail Archer’s mother, and share some holiday stories (maybe even this one!).  More information here.

We’re counting down to December 25 with 25 great ideas for spending time together as a family this holiday season.

Christianne’s mother, Bettianne, makes the world’s best brownies. Here’s her famous recipe for you to try together.

Ingredients
For this recipe, you have to be exact.  Bettianne says, “Don’t muck around.”

3 squares of melted unsweetened baker’s chocolate
1/2 cup of butter
1 cup of white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of flour
1 Tbsp icing sugar

Melt the chocolate in the microwave.  Add the butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Beat the mixture like crazy until it’s all smooth.  Add the vanilla and flour and continue to beat.

Pour into a greased 8 x8 pan.

Bake for 23 minutes on 350 F.  Not 22 minutes.  Not 24 minutes.  This is the most important part of the recipe.

Let cool. Dust with a tablespoon of icing sugar.

If you liked this suggestion, you may also like our Granny Blake’s Holiday Toffee workshop, which pairs making toffee with some great holiday stories.  The workshop takes place on December 18.  You can read more about it here.