Beat the winter blahs

Tips for making the most of indoor family time

BY SARAH MEAD

Rochester winters can be dreary, dark, and colder than cold. There comes a point every winter where I start browsing real estate in warmer parts of the country. We find ourselves daydreaming about tropical vacations and long summer days. When the monotony of the cold months starts to affect your mood and patience, try changing things up with one of these boredom busters: Dance party. When schools were closed and school dances were canceled, we cleared all the furniture out of the living room and threw a formal dance for ourselves. Now we keep the room empty and dance often. Let the kids make a playlist, get dressed up, and bake refreshments together. Break out the Just Dance video game or bust out your karaoke skills. For extra credit, challenge the whole family to learn a new dance routine together by practicing with a music video.

Fly around the world. When my children were remote learners for eighteen months, our favorite thing to do was choose a new country each week. We made our own passports and stamped them when the week was complete. We “traveled” by reading travel books, watching travel videos, and learning about how holidays are celebrated there. We read picture books about the people or animals from each country and loved learning how to say a few common phrases in a new language. Revisit your childhood. Bring out items that were special to you. Go through the old photos and videos. Choose a few children’s books that you loved the most. Reread them with your children and enjoy the stories all over again through their eyes. My favorites: Charlotte’s Web, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Ramona Quimby series, Because of Winn Dixie, and The Paper Bag Princess. Hold a baking competition. We were introduced to the TV show Nailed It on Netflix and we had so much fun holding baking competitions over zoom with our friends and family. If you’ve seen it, you know that the fun lies in comparing the perfectly decorated baked good to your own poor attempt to recreate it. Choose a recipe, gather your materials, and get baking! Don’t forget a shiny hat for the winner.

Make plans. I love looking at lake rentals and planning out a vacation week. Even though I know we won’t be enjoying it until the summer, it gives me a lift to think about it now. Take out travel books from the library and plan a week in Europe or a month in Africa. Even if you never end up going, the planning part can be fun! Rearrange a room. There is nothing like changing up your living space to boost your mood. You don’t even have to spend any money. I like to take every single thing out of a room and put it all back in different spaces, purging any clutter. Organizing a room always makes me feel better and we usually end up with several bags of items to donate. My kids love changing up their bedrooms! Book club. We found three other couples that love to read. We take turns choosing the book and hosting it at our houses. Even better, now that all of our children are getting older, they have started their