Need some family activities for winter? Plan a midwinter celebration to delight families with food, games, crafts, and friendship. Also invite families in your community to join the fun.

No matter the weather, your budget, or your church’s size, these fun family activities for winter cure any doldrums. Plus, they’re a great way for families with kids of any age to fellowship together.

Preparation: Winter Activities for Families

Spread the Word

Before the winter picnic, publicize the event well. To reach the widest audience, use a variety of publicity methods. Encourage everyone to wear dark, comfortable clothing that can get messy.

Wide-Open Spaces

For this family event, you’ll need a large, open activity area. Remove any furniture such as tables and chairs prior to the event. Also, divide the room into quadrants using masking tape. Label each quadrant with one of the following team names: Big, Bad Blues; Grungy Greens; Yahoo Yellows; and Rip-Roaring Reds.

As each family enters, assign them to a team quadrant. A simple way to do this is to cut up an equal number of blue, green, yellow, and red construction paper squares. Give each family a square, switching colors with each arriving family. Keep family members together. Teams don’t have to be exact in number, but they should be approximately the same size.

Grub Before Games

The family night begins with a real picnic, so invite each family to bring their own blanket and picnic dinner. Also, have families bring a dessert or snack to share with the entire group later in the evening. You’ll need to supply drinks, paper plates, napkins, and plasticware.

When families arrive, they’ll spread their blankets on the floor for their picnic. Allow 45 minutes for families to meet, greet, and eat. Once the food and blankets have been cleaned up, have families go to their color-coded team quadrant so the games can begin.

Game Time

You’ll need several volunteer referees with whistles to start and end many of these games.

Also create a hashtag (or purchase several disposable cameras to place around the room for families) to capture snapshots of the action. Later, compile the photos or develop the film and create a fun photo montage of the night’s festivities to display at church.

Start the evening of family activities for winter with a prayer and devotion. Then let the games and outreach begin!

14 Family Activities for Winter

1. Let It Snow

Age Level: 3 to adult

Activity Time: 5 minutes

Materials:

• 4 bags of cotton balls
• a referee
• access to the song “Let It Snow“

This giggle-inducing snowball fight is perfect for families with young children. Spread a bag of cotton balls in each quadrant.

Say: Let’s have a snowball fight! When the referee blows the whistle, start pelting the other teams with your “snowballs.” But you must stay inside your team’s quadrant-no stepping out of bounds. The object is to get as many snowballs out of your team’s quadrant and into the other teams’ quadrants as possible. When the whistle blows at the end of the song, everyone freezes. Then each team will count the snowballs in its quadrant.

When the referee blows the whistle, play the song “Let It Snow.” As the song ends, have the referee blow the whistle again and shout, “Freeze!” Then instruct each team to count the snowballs in its quadrant.

2. Shoveling Snow

Age Level: 3 to adult

Activity Time: 5 minutes

Materials:

• Paper cups

After the snowball fight, enjoy this fun clean-up game. You’ll need a paper cup “dustpan” for each adult in each quadrant. Have adults team up with one or two children in their quadrants and “shovel snow.” Snow-shoveling teams each hold hands or lock elbows as they work together to collect snow in their paper cup dustpans. Collect the paper cups when the teams are done shoveling.

3. Big Snow

Age Level: 10 to adult

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Materials:

• socks
• baby powder
• a plastic trash bag
• referees

For families with older children, try this version of the snowball fight. Three weeks before the winter picnic, place a “spare sock” collection box in your church. Ask families to donate clean socks that are mate-less or have holes. Once all the socks are collected, roll each sock into a ball. You might want to recruit help for this task.

Just before the winter picnic, coat the socks with baby powder. An easy way to do this is to put several socks at a time in a plastic trash bag and sprinkle the powder over them. Then tightly hold the bag shut and shake it to thoroughly coat the socks. For the game, have kids and adults form pairs or trios and hold hands or link elbows. Give each team two sock snowballs.

Say: On “go,” your job is to knock out other teams by hitting them with your powder-covered snowballs. If your team member gets hit, your entire team must sit down. You’ll know if you’ve been hit because the snowballs will leave a mark on you. Choose carefully before you throw since you only have two snowballs. You can also use snowballs you find on the floor. Good luck!

Have one referee blow the whistle. You’ll need several referees to monitor the snowball fight. Teams try to hit each other with the powder-covered snowballs. Play until there’s only one team left standing.

4. Feed the Seals

Age Level: Toddler and adult

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Materials:

• Goldfish crackers
• small Dixie paper cups

This game will delight the very youngest attendees. Kids age 3 and under especially enjoy “feeding the seals.” Form trios with one child and two adults.

Have one adult in each trio pose as the seal. These good-humored people need to be on their knees, and they’ll flap their hands up and down in front of them while barking like a seal whenever they’re fed. Have all the seals line up 25 feet from the other adult in their trio. Give the other adult—not the seal—a small cup of Goldfish crackers.

The child’s job is to run back and forth between the two adults, taking one Goldfish cracker at a time to feed the seal until the cup is empty.

5. Nesting Penguins

Age Level: 3 to 6 and adult

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Materials:

• 2 red, 2 yellow, 2 green, and 2 blue poster board circles
• eight inflated balloons
• 96 plastic eggs
• a referee

Next up: Here’s another game especially for young children. You’ll need two volunteer “penguins” from each quadrant. Give each penguin a “nest”—a poster board circle that represents his or her team’s color—and 12 plastic eggs. Give each penguin an inflated balloon.

Have each penguin place its nest in the center of the quadrant, and place all 12 eggs on top of the nest. Penguins must then stand 10 feet away from their nests and place the inflated balloons between their knees. On “go,” the penguins waddle toward their nests.

As the penguins waddle toward their nests, the kids’ job is to steal eggs from the other teams’ nests and put the eggs in their team’s nest. Kids can steal eggs over and over, but they can only take one at a time.

When the penguins finally waddle to the nest, they can help protect the eggs—but only by using their feet.

After eight minutes, have the referee blow the whistle. The team with the most eggs in its nest wins.