by bitsofthewilliams | Mar 22, 2024 | GIFT GUIDES, HOLIDAYS
Easter is a time of renewal, joy, and celebration, and what better way to mark this special occasion than by crafting the perfect Easter basket for your little one? As we prepare to fill our 5-year-old Sophia’s basket with treats and treasures, let’s also take a moment to reflect on the true meaning of Easter.
Pic from 2023
Meaning of Easter: Easter is a religious holiday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s a time for Christians around the world to rejoice in the triumph of life over death and the promise of salvation. But Easter is also a time for families to come together, to embrace traditions old and new, and to celebrate the arrival of spring.
Before we delve into the delights of assembling our Easter basket, let’s take a quick look at some essential keywords that capture the essence of this joyous occasion:
Now, let’s get down to the fun part: packing the Easter basket! Here are some ideas to help you create a basket that’s sure to delight your little one:
- Sweet Treats: Fill the basket with an assortment of chocolate eggs, bunny-shaped candies, and marshmallow treats. Don’t forget to include some healthier options like fruit snacks or yogurt-covered raisins.
- Cuddly Companions: Add a plush bunny or chick to the basket for some extra cuddly fun. These soft toys are perfect for snuggling up with on Easter morning.
- Creative Crafts: Include a DIY Easter craft kit to inspire creativity and imagination. From decorating eggs to making Easter cards, there are plenty of crafty activities to keep little hands busy.
- Egg-cellent Surprises: Hide a dozen colorful plastic eggs filled with stickers, small toys, or even coins. These egg-cellent surprises will add an extra element of excitement to your Easter egg hunt.
- Thoughtful Touches: Consider adding a personalized touch to the basket, such as a handwritten note or a special photo. These little gestures of love will make the Easter basket even more meaningful.
As we pack our 5-year-old’s Easter basket with love and care, let’s remember the true meaning of Easter: a time for joy, renewal, and family. Whether you’re celebrating with religious traditions or simply enjoying the arrival of spring, Easter is a time to cherish the moments spent together and create lasting memories. So here’s to a hoppy Easter filled with laughter, love, and plenty of Easter basket surprises!
Feel free to share your Easter basket ideas and traditions in the comments section or you can find me on Instagram @bitsofthewilliams and leave your ideas in the comment section on the video. Below is also a link to my Amazon storefront that you can browse ideas. Be sure to check out my next post on packing my 10 year old Easter basket.
Happy Easter Friends!
by bitsofthewilliams | Oct 30, 2023 | GIFT GUIDES, HOLIDAYS
In an era dominated by digital entertainment, traditional board games have managed to retain their charm, serving as timeless avenues for fostering creativity, social skills, and critical thinking in children. As we venture into 2023, the world of board games has expanded to encompass a diverse array of options that cater to various age groups and interests. Whether it’s fostering strategic thinking or encouraging collaborative play, the best board games for kids in 2023 offer an enriching and engaging experience for the young minds of today.
A simplified version of the classic Settlers of Catan, Catan Junior introduces young players to the concept of resource management and strategic thinking. With an adventurous pirate theme and straightforward rules, this game encourages kids to trade resources, build ships, and establish their pirate hideouts. It’s an ideal choice for fostering a competitive spirit while promoting cooperation and decision-making skills.
Combining the magic of Disney with the engaging gameplay of Codenames, this edition is a delightful way for kids to expand their vocabulary and association skills. Players work in teams to identify Disney characters and objects based on clever clues provided by their teammates. Codenames: Disney Family Edition fosters teamwork, communication, and critical thinking while immersing players in a world of beloved Disney characters and stories.
Inspired by the popular Ticket to Ride series, First Journey simplifies the gameplay for younger players, allowing them to embark on an exciting railway adventure across various continents. By collecting train cards and claiming routes, children learn about geography, planning, and decision-making. This game encourages a sense of exploration and introduces young minds to the concept of strategic route building.
Introducing young children to the basics of programming, Robot Turtles is a board game that combines fun and education seamlessly. By using simple commands and directions, kids guide their turtles through a maze, honing their problem-solving skills and logical thinking. This game serves as an excellent introduction to the world of coding, promoting an early interest in technology and logic-based activities.
Ideal for cultivating deductive reasoning and teamwork, Outfoxed! challenges young players to work together to solve a mystery. With a captivating storyline of a stolen pie, players gather clues, eliminate suspects, and use their critical thinking skills to identify the guilty fox. This cooperative game fosters communication, collaboration, and analytical thinking, making it a hit among families and educators alike.
Board games continue to play a pivotal role in the development of children, offering a myriad of benefits beyond mere entertainment. The best board games for kids in 2023 not only provide hours of fun and excitement but also nurture essential skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and decision-making. By embracing these engaging and educational board games, parents and educators can create an environment where learning is synonymous with enjoyment, fostering holistic development and a lifelong love for learning in young minds.
by bitsofthewilliams | Dec 4, 2021 | HOLIDAYS, UNCATEGORIZED
Welcome to the topic How to Spend Christmas Alone.
The holiday season is a special one for most people for various reasons. It means spending time with family, playing games, and just having a good time together for most people. But sometimes, we can find ourselves having to spend Christmas day alone due to work, travel restrictions, or anything else. However, there’s no reason to worry because this guide should help you have fun even by yourself on Christmas!
Do Things You Love
If you’re feeling particularly down about being alone on Christmas, don’t dwell on it! Focus on the things that make you happy even when you do them yourself. For some, this can be cooking, video games, watching a (Christmas?) movie, or anything else that gets your spirits up throughout the year; we believe it’ll do the trick just fine this time around too. After all, you have the whole day to yourself, and how often is it that we find ourselves in our adult lives with the freedom to spend any single day doing anything we want without restrictions, so get creative and have fun with it!
Connect With Others Online
The feeling of loneliness can often get you down no matter what you do it feels like, so there’s no reason to be that way! We all know how easy it is to call or text or facetime someone in this ripe digital age, and we recommend doing just that. Get your family to set up a device with a place on the family dinner table and have supper together just like you would if you were there; it is sure to relieve the sense of feeling like you’re completely by yourself since you’re not.
Avoid Social Apps
Social media has us constantly comparing our lives with those who paint a very unrealistic picture of a perfect life. This is likely to be particularly adverse at a time where you’re alone while your peers are posting pictures and videos of family gatherings and whatnot. To overcome the sense of loneliness this issue causes, we highly recommend a complete detox of digital items for the day to see if that helps you feel better.
Do Charity Work and Volunteer
If you feel like you need some face-to-face interaction, we think this might be the best way to go about it to brighten up your mood as well as that of other, less fortunate people in your neighborhood. It has been proven through scientific research that volunteering and doing community work, just generally being kind, makes people feel a lot happier, and this holiday season, we think you should consider giving back to the community. In return, not only are you getting rid of your loneliness, but you’re also taking away a pleasant feeling of having helped those in need, something we all should occasionally do regardless of our social situations.
With that, we’ve wrapped up our guide for spending the holidays by yourself. We hope things turn out well for you and that you have a great time this Merry Christmas!
Have any questions regarding the topic How to Spend Christmas Alone? Feel Free to comment below.
Also Read: 10 Classic Foods to Eat on Christmas
by bitsofthewilliams | Dec 4, 2021 | CHRISTMAS, HOLIDAYS
Welcome to the topic The Best Ways to Spend Christmas.
Sometimes, Christmas can feel like that one day of the year where you have a bit too much to do, but this may not always be the case. We often wonder what to do for fun on this festive holiday, and maybe we even feel like we’re just doing the same thing as last year. If this is how you’re feeling this year, don’t fret because we have just the guide for you!
Looking at Christmas Lights Around Town
Every person has their take on Christmas decorations, especially in terms of the lights. These lights in your neighborhood are something worth appreciating by just going on a walk around town and observing what every creative individual has come up with. Especially at night, few things can compare to the magical feeling of looking at an entire illuminated neighborhood full of Christmas lights. Remember to keep warm though, if you’re going out at night, especially with the family, taking the car would be a better option for this.
Christmas Movies
Let’s face it; it’s not Christmas if you haven’t yet watched the Home Alone series for the 20th time in a row! Or perhaps you watch the new releases for the holidays every year, in which case we hope this year won’t be any different for you! We recommend watching A Boy Called Christmas, Love Hard, and Robin Robin, all of which are bound to give you the feel-good feeling you’re looking for while maintaining that wholesome holiday theme without which a Christmas movie would be incomplete.
Donating and Charity Work
For the holidays this time around, consider giving back to the community through some donations or, if you feel like it, volunteering at the places around your neighborhood that need the help. Every holiday season, it’s pretty easy to find places that are short on manpower that could use the help right now and even throughout the rest of the year. In terms of suggestions, we recommend checking out the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and Soles4Souls. Scientifically proven to make people happier, we’re sure it’ll brighten up your day to help brighten up someone else’s, too!
Singing Christmas Carols
If you’re one of the rarer types that just can’t get enough of the Christmas jingles and carols, we think that’s great, and you should lean into it! Grab your coat and your keys, go for a stroll, and carol to your heart’s content with a friend or family member. Happiness is contagious, and your holiday spirit is bound to cheer up those around the neighborhood, maybe even inspire them to join you!
Go Ice-Skating
If you’re tired of all the Christmas and holiday season prep, or you’ve had just a few too many lazy days this time around, some exercise is bound to do you good. Ice-skating is the perfect way to have some fun while doing so! Going for a jog, or perhaps a gym session doesn’t seem like it has the holiday spirit you’re probably looking for, so grab a friend and hit your local rink for a fun, festivity-filled evening!
Have any questions regarding the topic The Best Ways to Spend Christmas? Feel Free to comment below.
Also Read: 5 things to do in Tampa Bay with kids on a weekend getaway
by bitsofthewilliams | Dec 4, 2021 | HOLIDAYS
Welcome to the topic The Best Christmas Movies to Watch in 2021.
Part of what makes the holiday season so special every year is the feeling of snuggling up with family in a blanket or next to a fireplace with a nice, hot cup of coffee and watching a Christmas movie just like we’ve done since we were kids. However, sometimes it can be a bit difficult to find something new to watch for the occasion, as we’ve all seen the Home Alone series about ten times every Christmas already.
A Boy Called Christmas
This movie is a heartwarming story about a boy that adventures out into the snow-covered North while searching for his father who has set out on a quest to find the mythical village of elves. Accompanied by his reindeer Blitzen and a joyful companion in the form of Miika, his pet mouse, Nikolas faces several challenges that he must overcome throughout his journey to meet his destiny. This movie is sure to be a delightful watch with the family, especially with your kids.
Love Hard
Love Hard features Nina Dobrev as the main character, a girl who finds the love of her life on a dating app and decides to fly over to the East Coast from L.A. to surprise him. However, it turns out that she’s been catfished and that the actual holiday surprise was the one waiting for her when she saw him. In a fun and comedic way, this movie shows a new perspective on love with the classic holiday flavor.
A Castle For Christmas
A feel-good entry where the author of a bestselling book decides to journey to Scotland. Here, she sees a castle on which the movie is based, and she falls in love with it, hoping to acquire it however she can. However, she is faced with the challenge of dealing with its owner, the grumpy duke who is strapped for cash and is not so eager to hand over the keys.
Robin Robin
Sometimes we don’t have the time nor energy after a long day of prepping and hosting a Christmas party; perhaps you want to watch something short and sweet that is still guaranteed to offer you a good time in these blessed holidays. Robin Robin is a unique stop-motion treat for Christmas from the creators of Chicken Run, one of the best stop-motion animated movies of all time. It features a tiny robin that makes a wish on Christmas, in the process of learning about herself and whether she can fly.
The Princess Switch 3: Romancing The Star
A Vanessa Hudgens special, this movie features the iconic movie star playing three different roles in the 3rd installment of the Princess Switch Christmas series. This time, a princess relic appears to have been stolen, which leads the duo of Fiona and a mysterious, charming man from her past to set about retrieving it. In the process, they rediscover the spark of romance and love that they felt they always had, leading to an exciting and wholesome Christmas romance story that is bound to make you feel good at the end of it.
Have any questions regarding the topic The Best Christmas Movies to Watch in 2021? Feel Free to comment below.
Also Read: 5 ways to give back this Christmas
by bitsofthewilliams | Dec 4, 2021 | HOLIDAYS
With the holidays just around the corner, it’s about time that you and your family settle in with a mug of hot chocolate and spend cozy evenings together binging some of the very best Christmas movies. Here are five family movies that you definitely need to add to your watch list for Christmas day.
The Grinch (2018)
Your favorite spoilsport is back yet again in this animated movie, plotting and scheming to dampen your festive spirit against all odds. Grammy-winning artist, Pharrell Williams, narrates the newest version of this all-time classic while Benedict Cumberbatch truly encompasses the Grinch’s grumpy character with his voice acting. From its flawless animation to its catchy songs, this film will take you on an entertaining and fun-filled journey that both you and your kids are bound to enjoy.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)
Now here’s a musical that is bound to awaken your Christmas spirit! Jingle Jangle is a heart-warming tale about Jeronicus, a toymaker left devastated after his apprentice cheats him by stealing his latest invention. Jeronicus loses all his drive to work on his craft until a fateful visit by his granddaughter rekindles his creative spirit. The fresh storyline and acting leave nothing to be desired.
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1970)
Old but gold—our next recommendation is one that you or your parents probably might have seen in your childhood, and it’s definitely one that you need to watch with your kids this year. With the charismatic voices of Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, and more, we learn the origin story of Santa Claus and how he came to become the jolly old man we all know him as. No matter how many times you watch this movie, it never really gets old!
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
This animated stop motion special focuses on the story of Rudolph, an adorable fawn with a glowing red nose who can’t fit in with the other reindeers no matter how hard he tries. We follow his journey over the years as he meets new friends and learns valuable lessons. This movie is perfect for teaching your kids about both acceptance and the festive, loving Christmas spirit.
Klaus (2019)
Our final recommendation is Netflix’s first animated movie, Klaus. This is yet another movie with fantastic animated visuals and voice acting that centers on a degenerate postman named Jesper and an unsociable toymaker named Klaus. After their initial meeting, the two strike up an unlikely friendship and partner up to secretly deliver Klaus’s toys to the children in the town. This film is an excellent option for all those kids who leap out of bed on Christmas morning in excitement to unwrap Santa’s thoughtful gifts.
And that’s all of our recommendations for the day! No matter which movie you choose to watch on this special day, make sure that you have your spouse and your kids close to you wearing those warm Christmas sweaters. May you have a merry Christmas evening watching these classic movies!
Have any questions regarding the topic The best family movies to watch with your kids on Christmas? Feel Free to comment below.
Also Read: 5 things to do in Tampa Bay with kids on a weekend getaway
