The Holiday Break (and WHAT TO DO WITH THE KIDS!!!)

I LOVE love love Christmas - and having all five kids home is incredible.  My sister is coming in from Chicago with her daughter who's 14, and I can't wait to celebrate!  They will be visiting for a couple of weeks, so we have ample opportunity to do lots of fun activities while they are here.  I've started a Pinterest page (naturally)...but here are some of the ideas that we've come up with so far!

1) Rent a Golf Cart (o.k. this was hubby's idea - and honestly - I wasn't so crazy about it) but the kids love it!  We're decorating it for the holidays and using it to deliver cookies to the neighbors! Rent it for a month!

2) Museums Museums Museums - Our family membership to the South Florida Museum is awesome for many reasons, and one of them is free or discounted access to SO many other Florida museums! Road Trip?

3) Beach Snow-people!  Coming from Chicago - they are going to need to thaw out.  Some beach snow people will be great fun!  Don't forget the carrots!

4)  Check out some fun craft ideas on that Pinterest page!

5)  Manasota Family Fun (check out links all over our Facebook page) does a great job keeping up to date listing of fun activites!

6)  Lights Looking!  We throw everyone in the car with hot coco - put on the Christmas carols - and driving around looking at lights singing!  Sounds goofy - but we LOVE it!

7) Naturally, we'll be throwing up some fun inflatables over the holiday when all the family shows up to keep the kids occupied!  Check ours out at Party Jumpers

Just the tip of the iceberg!  Feel free to comment and let us know your favorite family traditions and holiday activities! 

From our family to yours!

Holiday Birthdays....a Jolly Ho, Ho, Ho....

My second daughters birthday is 12/25...yup...that's what you get when you pretend you are Martha Stewart Christmas Eve and have a baby due in January.  I was DETERMINED NOT to let the fact that her birthday is actually ON Christmas to ruin her special day and I think we've done o.k. so far (She'll be 17 in a couple weeks now!)  If you have a special person in your life, and THEY have a birthday on or around a holiday, here's some great advice!

• Make a decision to EMBRACE the day or DELAY the day!  For our family, we just make Christmas double duty (so much family is at our house anyhow), we have birthday cake for dessert and wrap birthday presents in birthday wrapping.  Not down with that? Celebrate the birthday a week before (a week after would probably be a huge let down)
• Consider having a Half Birthday! We did this a couple of years, and called it her Happy Un-Birthday (funniest story about telling cake people to write "Have a Happy Un-Birthday"...they wrote instead "Have an Unhappy Birthday".  While daughter #2 didn't find it amusing, I laughed until I cried!
• Ask your kid! Great parents get so wrapped up in planning the perfect day for their darlings, they often forget to take a deep breath and ask "What would your perfect day look like? Here are some great options - what would make you happy?"  What's their personality? Are they going to be so exhausted and overwhelmed by celebrating close or on the same day - or would they just LOVE the extra attention?

Whatever and whomever you are celebrating this time of year - We at Party Jumpers wish you the happiest of everything - today and for all of 2015! 

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