People spend hours (and usually money they can’t afford to spend) shopping for the perfect gifts to give to family members each Christmas. Then the day after Christmas, those family members spend hours in lines at the stores trying to return the gifts they received to get something they like better. Something is wrong with the Christmas focus on gifts. This year we have decided to focus more on family fun experiences and activities than on gifts. Gifts are easily forgotten (or returned), but memories of times together linger for years.

To help accomplish this goal, we decided to make a Family Fun Stocking that we are filling with slips of paper with activities to do together. We will give you a list at the end of this post of some of the ideas we plan to put into the stocking. Some of the family members are arriving after we publish this blog post, and we want to allow them to add ideas to the stocking as well. At various times during our two weeks together we will let the grandkids draw an activity from the stocking and then we will do whatever it says. We are anticipating lots of fun memories!

First we will show you the stocking we made. Melinda took an old sweatshirt that I was no longer wearing, drew a big stocking on it and cut it out. She used that as a pattern to cut out a lining for the stocking from plain cotton fabric. The stocking pieces were sewn right sides together and the rounded seam curves clipped, then turned right side out. The lining pieces were sewn together, curves clipped and the lining left with the seams showing. The lining was then slipped into the stocking and the top edges surged together (you can also zig-zag stitch).

For the cuff of the stocking, a rectangular piece of flannel was cut twice the width of the stocking plus seam allowances and twice the height desired for the cuff plus about an inch. The width of the flannel was folded with right sides together and the seam stitched. Then the height of the flannel was folded wrong sides together to form cuff. The raw edges were surge stitched together. (Sorry, I did not get pictures taken of these steps!)

I positioned the flannel cuff on the stocking with about one inch of the cut edge of the cuff tucked to the inside of the stocking and hand basted it in place. The rest of the cuff was pulled out from the stocking and I machine stitched the cuff to the stocking along the surged edge of the cuff. As you can see from the pictures, the cuff folds over the top edge of the stocking but is not stitched at the top edge. I made a loop by folding a strip of the sweatshirt fabric like bias tape and stitched along the edge. The ends of the loop were machine stitched to the stocking along the sewn edge of the cuff. (Pull cuff away to avoid stitching the loops to the front side of cuff.)

I embroidered the words “Family Fun” using the couching stitch to the front of the cuff.Now the stocking is ready to be filled with lots of Family Fun activities.

Family Fun Activity Ideas:

• Make a Christmas treat
• Make popcorn and watch a Christmas movie
• Go look at Christmas lights
• Play charades
• Play a wii game tournament
• Color pictures together
• Take a walk
• Go caroling
•  Play dominoes (Chicken Foot, Mexican Train, etc.)
• Play a card game (Canasta, Blitz AKA Nerts, Milles Bourne, Spoons, Go Fish, etc.)
• Tell stories (Use your story bag!)
• Play instruments and sing together
• Take family pictures
• Dress up and take pictures of each other
• Plan a scavenger hunt (in the house or outside depending on the weather and ages of children)
• Everyone gets a back rub at the same time
• Each person directs a stretching exercise for everyone to do at the same time
• Play frisbee golf (weather permitting)
• Come up with more activities to do together!

What are some ideas for more activities?