Three dates for December, no sitter and no party
December fills every evening with something that has to get done. These three happen after the house is quiet, and none of them is on the list.
Pick one. Save the others for later in the month.
Category: Make · 20 minutes · after bedtime · under $10
Decorate one cookie for each other, as a portrait of how the other person's week went.
You need: two plain cookies, bought or left over. One tube of icing. Two plates.
One cookie each, one plate each, the icing shared.
Decorate a cookie for the other person. The design is how their week went, not how it should have gone.
Swap. Each of you explains the cookie you were given before the one who made it says a word.
Eat them.
Ask: which part of this week do you want to get back?
2. The Carol Rewrite
Category: Play · 20 minutes · after bedtime · free
Rewrite the first verse of a carol you both know, about your own year, a line at a time.
You need: one sheet of paper, one pen.
Pick a carol you both know well enough to hum.
Take turns writing one line each for a new first verse. It has to be about this year, in this house. Same tune, new words.
When the verse is finished, sing it once.
Keep the paper somewhere you will find it next December.
Ask: which line did the other person write that was more true than funny?
3. Five Questions
Category: Story · 20 minutes · after bedtime · free
Five Christmas questions, taken in turn, one at a time.
You need: nothing but this page, on one phone.
Take turns. One of you reads the first prompt out loud and the other answers it:
the worst gift you were ever given
a Christmas that went wrong and is funny now
a tradition from growing up you would drop
one you would keep for the rest of your life
the part of Christmas that still means the most to you
Swap for the next one. Whoever is listening only asks follow-ups.
Stop at the end of the list, or when one answer is worth staying on.
Ask: which of these do we want to still be doing in ten years?
And the rest of December
A new at-home date lands every Sunday at 5:00pm, and December's are the most seasonal of the year. The box to get them is at the bottom of this page.