Gramma’s Christmas Camp 2021 (mini-version)

Do you have traditions that you do with your grandkids, especially during the Christmas holidays? Do you visit festive light displays, bake cookies together, or go Christmas caroling, or make crafts?

For the past three years I have hosted a mini–Christmas Gramma Camp for my grandchildren and niece and nephews who live near me. We play games, do crafts, watch movies, do a photo shoot, and have a sleep over.

For the grandson out of state, it’s a little more difficult but I usually travel there a month or two before the Christmas holiday and we try to combine crafts and games for the respective fall and winter holidays into that one trip. Our hotel room is a festive and fun holiday environment during this time.

My 2021 Christmas Gramma Camp included these fun games:

1. Candy Cane Scavenger Hunt – with living in Arizona comes the benefit sunshine, even during the winter months, so we do this hunt outside usually, weather permitting.  I hide tons of candy canes outside and each child receives a bag for gathering their finds. Whoever finds the most candy canes will win the prize. Since there is quite an age spread between the kids, I give the younger children a head-start before the rambunctious big kids come running.  This simple game is such a favorite and easy to do. 

When we think we have all of the candy canes, each child dumps their bag and counts them and the winner and maybe even a second place can pick a prize from my prize basket.  I keep a score sheet to tally the points and with five kids playing the games, the winner gets 5 points, second place is 4 points, third is 3 points, and on down.

2. “Junk in the Trunk” (a fun and popular Minute to Win It game) – You need string, empty tissue boxes, ping pong balls, and jingle bells.  I tied an empty tissue box to the back side of each child (lower back just above the buttocks), and in each box an equal number of ping pong balls and jingle bells are placed. 

As I yelled “GO”, the children jumped around, shaking their booty, trying to get all of the balls and bells out of their box first.  It’s quite funny to watch.  Whoever shakes them out first wins 5 points, with second place getting 4 points, and on and on.  The key is to have the child yell or shout (it’s quite loud with bells jingling and balls bouncing) when they know their box is empty so you can tabulate the winner. We played this game a couple of times because it was so much fun!

3.  Cup Stacking game (another fun Minute to Win It game) – We used the plastic drinking solo type cups and I had also bought some of the small shot size plastic cups for some variation.  The purpose of the game is to stack the cups into a pyramid, only using one hand, and take the cups down again only using one hand – all in one minute. Once again, we used the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 scoring with the winner getting 5 points. 

The kids really liked this game, so we played multiple times.  Helpful hint: be sure you do some practice rounds yourself to assure you have the correct number of cups to create a full symmetrical pyramid.  I believe we used 28 of the big cups and I let the kids practice first to figure out how many cups on bottom row, next row, etc.

We played one or two other games, but they weren’t as fun and successful as the top three I described. I alternated crafts, rest breaks, and other activities such as “Let’s Dance Party 2022” on the Nintendo Switch, and a fun and imaginative play dough session.

The Crafts – Four crafts were completed during this holiday Gramma Camp and most came out quite nice. As we were working on our crafts we listened to Christmas music, talked, or I told Christmas jokes and riddles for their enjoyment.

1. Pinecone Snow Owl – With already collected pinecones, this craft also required cotton balls, foam cut outs, and googly eyes.  The kids stuffed the cotton balls into all of the gaps of the pinecone between the pinecone ribs.  We cut out wings, beak, and outer eye section from craft foam and hot glued them to the pinecone.  Last we glued the googly eyes to the eye section and these owls were just the cutest! (Credit to Pinterest https://pin.it/pBL4aZh)

2. Candy Cane Ornaments – This craft was not quite as successful, and if I am to do this craft again, I must find some better ways to perfect it.  We used crushed and broken candy cane pieces and Christmas cookie cutters.  The kids were to place a single layer of the candy cane pieces inside the metal cookie cutter shape, trying to be sure to fill in all gaps. This was easier said than done.

Each child’s cookie cutter was either on a baking sheet, or a sheet of foil that was carefully moved to a baking sheet before going into the oven. I had created a sample ornament ahead of time and it was pretty decent, but I did have some practice attempts that did not come out at all.

The success of this craft is dependent on the cookie cutter shape, keeping the candy cane pieces in one layer and filling the gaps.  The cookie cutter shapes that were too intricate were hard to release from the cookie cutters and small pieces chipped off. If the children stacked candy canes on top of each other or didn’t fill in all of the gaps, the result was not too good, BUT, it still tasted good! (Credit to Pinterest https://pin.it/3BXsTif)

3. Frosted Sugar Cone Christmas Tree – This craft required green frosting, cone shaped ice cream sugar cones, M&Ms or skittles, string licorice, and a marshmallow type star.  The kids frosted their sugar cones, decorated with M&M or Skittle ornaments, draped licorice string garland, and topped it off with a marshmallow star.  Note:  We used the shooting star from Lucky Charms cereal and cut off the star tail which made a perfect marshmallow tree topper. (Credit Pinterest https://pin.it/Xtm5CIZ)

4. Candy Christmas trees – were the last craft we made.  We used a Rolo wrapped chocolate candy for the tree stand, Reeses mini peanut butter cups for the for the body of the tree, and a Hersheys kiss for the top of the tree.  We then glued colorful sequines for ornaments, and sequined stars for the tree topper.  Cute and Edible! (Credit to Pinterest https://pin.it/7MEfBG9)

I would say my 2021 Christmas Gramma Camp was quite successful – and oh, quite exhausting, lol!  One very important tip to achieve a fun couple of days is to be prepared.  Be sure to have your craft ideas selected and the materials for the crafts ready to go.  The same goes for the games.  Be prepared in advance and lay out a possible schedule.

I heard lots of laughs and saw lots of smiles amongst the kids which warmed my heart, but the one compliment that I received and meant the most, was from my normally stoic, serious, and reserved 10 year old nephew who said, “I didn’t know this was going to be so much fun – I really had fun!”

Wishing you all lots of love!

Until next time,

Gramma Warrior