1. Dance Party
Do you love people who love to get down? Plan a Christmas Dance Party, complete with fun music, wacky outfits, and crazy decorations. Make sure you get some screenshots, because these are memories you’re going to want to pass on to the next generation!

2. Book Club
Send a book to each household you want to participate in your virtual book club and set the dates. This can work for people of all ages. You can pick a classic like Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! to read with the kids in your life, or you can make it a season-long thing and read a novel together with your siblings or cousins. If your family members don’t enjoy reading, you could pick a devotional or a joke book to work through together instead.

3. Board Game Night
It’s likely been awhile since you’ve had a game night, so get out your dusty Candy Land or (if you all aren’t the table-flipping type) Monopoly, and set up a video call. For a really special touch, send a box of their favorite snacks ahead of time.

4. Zoom Party Scavenger Hunt
This works best if you have a lot of people on your video call. Start off with a piece of paper and write down all the items in the scavenger hunt on the left side of the paper, and each person’s name along the top edge of the paper for scoring. Think about items that most people will be able to find somewhere in their home- a slipper, a spatula, car keys, a sports team t-shirt…the options are limitless! The rules are:

• All players must be touching their device before each round begins. 
• The host calls out the first item on the list and starts the timer.
• The players must rush to find the item in their house and bring it to the starting position before the timer runs out.
• Once the countdown ends, all players must come back to the starting position, whether they found the item or not.
• The host then writes down the points won by each player, next to the item. 
• The scoring works like this: 
  • The first player to reach their screen with the correct item wins 3 points.
  • The second player to arrive with the correct item wins 2 points.
  • All players who find the item within the time period but did not arrive first or second, receive 1 point.
  • The rest of the players who did not find the item, or found the item after the time was up receive 0 points.

5. If You’re Not Text Savvy
If you’re not familiar with Zoom or video calls, and the idea of learning how to do it is just too much for you right now, there are still fun things you can do! Think about writing a scavenger hunt, sending it to your loved ones in the mail, and asking them to take pictures and mail them back to you. Or, have phone call dates and have specific things set up to ask about so the conversation doesn’t lag. If you have a smartphone, look at getting Game Pigeon and play classic games with the young people in your life. There’s Four In a Row (it’s like Connect 4), Checkers, Chess, Word Hunt, and many many others!

Hopefully these ideas have inspired you to think of creative ways to connect with your loved ones this year. Maybe you’ll even start a yearly tradition! Do you have any ideas of ways to connect from a distance? Tell us about them, and you might just be giving someone else a ray of hope during this unusual season we’re in! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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God bless you. Stay hopeful!

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