Month: October 2018
Having to celebrate Christmas away from your family is definitely not the end of the world. It can be great fun if you don’t let yourself get upset, and don’t stay cooped up in your flat all alone.
Fairs and Markets
Something that can put any lonely soul into a cheerful mood is visiting a Christmas market or fair for an overdose of seasonal food, beverages and entertainment. Better still is if you can arrange to go together with friends and indulge in numerous mugs of steaming mulled wine. In as cute and cosy a setting, you won’t have the chance to get upset about being away from your family.
Celebrating With Friends
You are bound not to be the only one staying in town for Christmas, being unable to get home to celebrate with your family. So be the organiser of the group and arrange to spend the festivities together with friends.
Decide on where you will celebrate. The most likely and practical venue is someone’s home so that you have access to a kitchen for preparing the festive meal.
Put together a menu. This can be particularly fun if you have an international bunch of friends. Ask everyone to contribute a traditional recipe from their country. The easiest way of organising the meal might be to ask everyone to pre-prepare things at home, and just reheat them upon arrival if necessary.
You can also ask everyone to prepare some form of entertainment, whether it’s a national song or dance, or a game that could get everyone involved.
To avoid having to spend vast amounts of money, speak to your friends to ensure no one splurges on expensive gifts leaving the others feeling uncomfortable.
Staff Parties
One of the most fun occasions people associate Christmas with is the staff lunch or night out. It is usually a really jolly event that fuels the coffee break gossip sessions for at least the next few months or so. Towards the end of the year, people seem to lose their inhibitions and forget what is considered appropriate behaviour among colleagues. Most seasonal staff nights out involve a meal, drinks, dancing and at least one person wondering around the room with a branch of mistletoe.
Hotels, restaurants and other event spaces offer special deals and party packages, in which prearranged entertainment such as a cheesy DJ usually plays a part.
You may not have the chance to spend Christmas with your family, and you could be missing out on presents, but you do have your corporate Christmas gifts to look forward to as companies reward their employees for a year of hard work. These are either handed out at the office or during the Christmas party.
Camping has always been a favorite of families for fun and get together. Times have changed and teenagers go not like camping anymore, there are no computers and internet signals in the woods and sometimes they even lose their cell communication. Modern camp grounds are not like this, of course you need to roughen it up a bit to enjoy camping, but this does not mean you have to be totally isolated from the world.
Summer camping with all the family is a great opportunity to bond and have fun. Even teenagers will go for it if you chose the camp carefully and make sure that they have wireless computer access and that they are within cell phone communication too. This does not mean that the kids will spend the day hooked up to the computers or phones all day. It means that they can feel safe and comfortable because they can still communicate even though they wont be doing it all the time.
It is important that you and your kinds define and set the communication with the outside times so you do not have any confusion later. The idea of the trip is to share with each other outdoor activities and not to go somewhere else to use the phone and computer. Schedules for this must be set and respected, if they are not the trip will end up in failure. Family activities should be agreed upon by all those involved. Canoe rides and swimming or hiking, horseback riding, any activity that involves the whole family must be agreed upon by everybody.
The children will not have fun if they are forced to do something they dont want. Get everybody involved in the planning and preparing of meals, everyone should also have chores to do, collect wood or wash the dishes. Get the family together for at least one hour at night around the campfire and talk to your children, listen to them talk about their friends or what they do or want to do. It may seem stupid to you or worthless to you as an adult, but their worries and problems are very real for them and they need solutions for these problems.
Forget about work and school and all the problems you have at home during thee few days. Concentrate on sharing as much time as possible with your wife and children. Make it a point to have individual activities with each one alone too. This will help you get closer and learn more about each other in a one to one conversation away from the normal environment of home pressure.
Talking and having family fun with teenagers is not easy. You must have patience and you must have a canny instinct to know and feel when it is time to approach them and when not to. Taking them out of their environment for a couple of days is good because they will be relieved of their everyday pressures and stress much in the same way you will also be relieved of these. It will be easier for both of you to communicate and talk about irrelevant stuff. Be patient and follow your instincts, this can be a great bonding experience that will stay with them forever.
A family camping trip is always a way to bring the family closer and to enjoy nature together. Take advantage of the time together and get to know your children better.
You and your family are heading out early in the morning for a day of fishing in your brand new fishing boat. You hit that highway that leads to the lake, excited voices echoing throughout your SUV. Your wife and kids are just as delighted with the new boat as you are and are discussing the whopper they hope to catch. You arrive at the lake, launch the runabout that contains the entire family’s fishing gear and in no time at all, you are skimming across the water, every family member safely encased in a lifejacket. You just know that this is going to be a great family outing and everyone loves the new fishing boat.
A fishing boat can be anything between a canoe where you dangle basic bait over the side in a river or stream to a powerful cabin cruiser or yacht. Basically, all you need to get out onto the water is a vessel that is seaworthy. There are a large variety of fishing boats available on today’s market. You can buy them at boat shows, fishing shows or dealerships. Let’s look at some different types of fishing boats.
Freshwater Fishing Boats
If you enjoy fishing in freshwater rivers, lakes and streams, leave the big, powerful boats for someone else. Choose a fiberglass or aluminum boat that is lightweight and easy to transport. A bowrider, runabout, walleye boat or a boat with a small or dual console will meet all of your freshwater fishing needs. These boats are perfect for family outings.
Bass Boats
Bass boats ride low in the water and are usually very colorful and extremely fast. They can be aluminum or fiberglass and most often they are equipped with platforms in both the bow and stern for easy casting. If you’ve always dreamed of owning the perfect bass boat, be sure to buy one that has a trolling motor mounted on the bow. These boats are mainly used for sport fishing and tournament fishing.
Offshore Saltwater Boats
If you enjoy heading out on the open sea for a day of saltwater fishing that includes huge fish and heavy tackle, you will need a heavy boat that is dependable and can be relied on in all situations and weather. Anything less than a cuddy cabin or center console that’s equipped with either twin or single outboard motors will not fit the bill. The high end of an offshore saltwater boat is a bluewater or convertible that comes complete with luxury quarters and elaborate salons. These boats should be equipped with inboard diesel engines that have maximum power.
Inshore Saltwater Boats
If you’re planning to fish for tarpin, bonefish, trout and snook or redfish on tropical flats, a light boat will take you a long way. This type of boat should always be less than a 25-footer and powered by a single outboard motor. The best type of vessel for inshore saltwater fishing is a basic bay boat or flat boat. Both types of boats offer a spacious deck for casting and float well in shallow water.
Float Tubes
Float tubes are devices that allow fly anglers who don’t own a boat easy access to get out onto the water. They are excellent for fishing ponds, lakes and mountain streams. Essentially a float tube is a floatation device that is equipped with a seat. The angler sits in the seat while wearing fins and kicks his way around while partially submerged. Fly fishing from float tubes can be difficult, especially for those who are using them for the first time. It definitely takes time to hone your fly casting skills from a float tube.
There are two basic types of float tubes – traditional and pontoon. Traditional float tubes are usually round and have an opening in the front or middle. Basically, these are an inner tube with built-in features for fly fishing. These float tubes can take a lot of time to maneuver because they are round in shape and cause a lot of water resistance.
The newer pontoon float tubes are much easier to use. These are equipped with two pontoons, or air chambers, one on each side of the fisherman. Pontoon float tubes have less water resistance and offer far less drag than traditional ones because the pontoons are V-shaped and move through the water almost effortlessly.
If you are thinking of purchasing a fishing boat, shop around, talk to anglers who own their own boats and do your research to help you decide which type of boat you’d like to have. If you still can’t make a choice, talk to a boat fishing guide or the owner of a fishing charter service. They will be glad to give you tips on how to choose the perfect boat for you.
Through ensuring that you have some good craft ideas in mind when the kids are let out of school for the winter, you’ll be able to ensure that your Christmas season is both joyful and fun-filled for the entire family. Making homemade Christmas ornaments will exercise the kids’ creativity and make for superb gifts to give out to loved ones. After they grow older, these kids Christmas ornaments will likely be looked upon fondly and join yesteryear to the present, potentially bringing many generations of your family together. What greater gift could there be?
Personalized Christmas ornaments can take numerous forms, dependant upon what their expected use is. Should you have something fairly complicated planned, think about having your kids Christmas ornaments used as Christmas tree toppers. An original Christmas ornament will almost certainly be prominent, so another suggestion would be to have your kids embellish their own Christmas balls each year. You may use glass ornaments to mark special events, such as a babys very first Christmas, particular anniversaries, or notable achievements.
On the subject of picking which kids Christmas ornaments to make and/or personalize, there are a whole host of available options. Even though an elaborate centerpiece or a homemade Christmas wreath may necessitate a lot of creativity, time, and effort, they will certainly offer a personalized touch that goes beyond the regular Christmas tree ornaments. But when you wish to keep things rather simple, there are lots of Christmas tree ornaments you can acquire that are easy to customize. A few ornament sets are made up of multiple individual pieces, such as Santa in his sleigh, driving a line of reindeer. The sled may have a blank space big enough to add your child’s name and the date.
Other choices for easily individualized Christmas ornaments make use of pictures. These enable you to have a good time and play photographer while you take fun holiday snapshots of your kids and family, and then you can let them determine which pictures they would want to see immortalized on plaques, ball ornaments, or even the inside of a snow globe.
If you are feeling a little more daring and want to create your kids Christmas ornaments from scratch, salt dough is a timeless and creative solution. After picking out the perfect formula and directions from the library, a friend, or an Internet search, you can leave the remainder of the project totally up to the kids. The ornament style, paint, decorative touches, and whatever else . are only limited by the child’s own creativity. Older children might choose to try their hand at ceramics, knitting, or embroidery in an attempt to keep them interested with the crafting project. Should you have a less artistically-inclined child, craft stores and specialty shops typically make available a wide array of ornament kits which are readily personalized and only call for a little bit of assembly.
No matter which craft idea you ultimately choose, these personalized or homemade Christmas ornaments offer an activity that simultaneously occupies your childs mind and fosters holiday memories which will last for many, many Christmas seasons to come.