With cold temperatures outside, we're not as active as we were during the past few months. Here's what we're doing instead.

If you were to ask me to name my favorite season, I'd almost always tell you whichever one it currently is! Oh sure, there are summer activities (like my favorite, picnics!) that would be nice to share now, but they'll be just as nice in about 6 months. For now, I enjoy our simple and peaceful winter activities.

Lately, our evenings have looked like:

1. Spooning dinner out of the rice cooker/crockpot and eating & chatting together
2. Soaking the dishes in the sink and leaving them til morning (and deciding this is okay)
3. Playing a few games of Uno
4. Me knitting while he reads the news
5. Curling up a bit early in bed with a good but sleep-inducing book

...and you?

Share in the comments some of your winter family activities. I'm always looking for more ideas!

For more specific family activity ideas (general; not just for winter), read these posts.

It was my turn to plan family night, and I had a craving for arts & crafts, while I knew my husband would be in the mood for games and competition. Thankfully, I found a great combo in the Puzzle People Game!

I got the idea for Puzzle People from Scrumdilly-do's Boredom Busters: Crazy Creatures post. You can follow her thorough & colorful how-to there; basically, you want to:

1. Line up index cards (we did 3) and draw one character across the three: head, body, and legs/feet. It's okay if it's not humanoid, so long as it can fit across the cards.
2. We then wrote "head" "body" and "feet" on the back sides, but won't do this next time - see below.
3. Mix up the cards.
4. Make up games to play with them! Use your imagination, use her ideas, or try mine, below.
5. Keep 'em for more fun later - we used a simple plastic zip-top bag.

Our Games

Game #1. Story Telling:
After separately drawing our characters, we introduced each with a little (funny) story. The body (middle card) in the photo above, for example, is a young chef who loves cooking, mixing, and his fun checkered pants.

Game #2. Crazy People:
We mixed up the heads in one stack, bodies in one stack, and feet in one stack, all upsidedown. Because we could tell by handwriting what was what, we dealt them out rather than choosing cards (next time we'll leave off the backs). We each had one minute to come up with a name for the newly-created person, along with a story about why they look the way they do.

Game #3. Build-a-Person: We shuffled all the cards together and dealt 5 to each player. The goal was to get a complete, matching, head-body-feet character.
We held our cards so only we could see them and, in "Go Fish" fashion, asked, "Do you have a _____?" Since we not kids, asking "Do you have a bee," "Do you have a car," etc. would be too easy, so we could only ask for body parts.
"Do you have a head? Body? Feet?" If the player had any, they had to pick one and give it to you. If they didn't have one, you drew one from the top of the card pile. Either way, you always ended your turn by discarding one card to the bottom of the draw pile so that your hand ended back up with 5 cards.
The winner, of course, is whoever first puts together a complete, matching person!
This was a fun, silly, game since you didn't have a lot of control over what you got, and you had crazy looking people in your hand the whole game.

...and you?

Share links or ideas in the comments section with other games you get to make & then play. You can also upload Puzzle People photos to the flickr group!

How do you plan memorable family time without adding a huge budget item - “Movies, the Zoo, and Amusement Parks”? Read my favorite ideas and comment with your own.

* Read Together - I don’t even have kids, but my husband and I like to read to one another! Funny stories, folktales, all the DK educational books, and anything else you can borrow or pull off your bookshelf makes for a great time, whether just before bed or any other time. I have great memories of my dad reading a chapter of Alice in Wonderland to my sister and me every night for weeks.

* Take a Walk - My husband and I try to do this every night after dinner, and usually have our best conversation of the day!

* Watch the sun rise or set - Try this out from different spots: a nice window in your house, the apartment roof, a park. Talk, or enjoy the contemplative silence. Kids can tell stories about the shapes in the clouds as they change colors.

* Window shop - When living in the States, we liked to walk the sidewalks of our downtown, looking at the window displays. This is especially fun around holiday seasons!

* Browse - Stores with seating and/or kids’ play areas make great spots for spending time “just looking.” Our chain book store back home had squishy mats all around the kids’ books and a complementary coffee stand with comfy chairs right by the joke books. For a relaxed date setting, our local independent book store had rocking chairs around their fireplace in the classics section.

* Get Natural - Living in the “Natural State” for 10+ years probably biases me, but I think State Parks are one of the best ideas America ever had! These not only have hiking trails, camping sites, and picnic areas, but most also offer free events and kids’ programs, especially when the weather’s nice.

* Stargaze - All you really need is a blanket to lay on so you won’t get a neckache, but if you want to learn what you’re staring in awe at, search for a local Astronomy Club. Ours offered monthly Star Parties where all the amateur hobbyists brought out their telescopes and aimed them at the really cool stuff - Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons, and so on. They also ran interactive fun kids’ activities and visually wowing slideshows or movies inside. If you don’t have one nearby, you can still use Star Guides to find out about sky events like meteor showers you can see!

* Use your local Library - Libraries have always been a favorite spot of mine. You know what you can do there: read newspapers, books, play educational games on computers, surf the internet, get help from the ever-wise Librarians. Most libraries offer events and workshops, especially for kids and especially during the summer. My home library hosted concerts for local schools’ music students, craft workshops, book readings, and much more.

* Sing! You don’t even need a sing-a-long DVD. In fact, you don’t even need to know the words to any songs! If you have kids, their creative minds should be sufficient to fuel a family sing-a-long that may involve more giggles than music skills, but that will be a time to remember.

* Volunteer - Look in your local newspaper, keep your eyes open for posts on bulletin boards, and ask around. Washing dogs for an animal shelter, sorting items for a charity rummage sale, visiting lonely people in hospitals or nursing homes, or hosting a knit-athon with neighborhood families provides memorable time together, thought-provoking moments, and a feel-good satisfaction.

* Tell and Write Stories - Storytime doesn’t always have to come from a book! Tell stories you’ve heard, and let everyone practice making up stories. Use history, parables, folktales, your childhood, and the day’s events for inspiration.

* Play Handgames - I plan on writing a post about this sometime soon, so please recommend your favorites in the comments. Patty-Cake, Crocodile, and so on.


...and you?

What are your favorite no-cost family activities? Share ‘em in the comments - I’d love to try them out myself!