Our house has a couple of traditions that we put into our schedule. They are not really planned out far in advance. But our family nights are an important part of our routine. I know that every family does this with their own flair and I am so interested in hearing from other people about their family nights because we are ALWAYS looking for new ideas for things to do. To be perfectly honest, our family nights are normally last-minute events that are not big productions. Over the years I have heard about a lot of different kinds of family nights that I have always wanted to try and have every intention of doing so. My hope is that this post and your feedback will inspire us to do more and make bigger deals on these kinds of nights.
The only requirement for a family night is that you and your family are together! You don’t even have to have the whole family there (which becomes harder to do as your kids get older or if you have a big family), as long as you spend time together.
Family Time Ideas
Boys/Girls Night – We do this one a lot because we have an even mix of boys and girls with a major difference in likes and dislikes. Also, it is really important to bond in small groups that are normal groupings. Our normal boys/girls nights mean that we split for dinner and an activity and then meet up and hangout together for a time as well.
- Boys –
- Video Games – A lot of times we grab burgers and then head home to play video games together.
- Movie – boys and girls often have different tastes in movies, so we will usually go and see action or superhero movies on boy’s nights that the girls won’t want to see.
- Laser tag – Most boys like anything with running around and weapons. Laser tag, paintball, or airsoft is an easy activity that is hit every time.
- Lego build-off – I have a boy with autism who will never out-grow Legos 🙂 We will have a themed build-off from time to time.
- Sporting event – We live near a minor league baseball team that is easy to grab tickets to. But any kind of sporting event or monster truck rally is normally a good bet for a successful boy’s night:-)
- Girls – I have never been on a girl’s night but I have received good intel from my daughters.
- Sushi – grabbing sushi with the girls is always a good way to start with my girls.
- Nails – Most girls love this, especially before a trip or event that is coming up.
- Mall – Retail therapy is a great excuse for girls to walk around, smoothie in hand, and catch up.
- Chick-flick – There are movies that the girls want to see that the guys do not. When this happens we normally make a guys/girls night out of it so everyone is happy.
- Massage – Getting a massage or a facial (that may be the same thing… not my area of expertise) is always a great way to spend an evening and express to your girls the importance of self-care.
- Baking – Time together baking is a great time for conversation and life lessons.
Family movie night – If your family can agree on a movie (a rarity in our house) going to the theater together can be fun! We will often grab snacks from the dollar store and sneak them into Mom’s purse. For movie night at home, we will rent a movie that is still new in the theater or we will pick a classic that we think our kids need to see. When we pick a classic like Rocky, or E.T. there is ALWAYS push-back. But 9 times out of 10, they love the movie and are glad we watched it. Believe it or not, E.T. was not a winner in our house – Don’t judge my kids, we are working on them:-) We will grab snacks from the store or make a special treat, sit down, and watch!
Bake together – This is not always on Boys/Girls nights for us. We have made cookies together and other treats on a normal, less formal family night as a way of doing something special together when we are all just home doing normal stuff. Our daughter Hannah loves to bake! So she is normally the driving force of these times.
Game Night – With our largely diverse group, this is increasingly difficult to do. Finding a game that my kids like and that everyone can participate in is a challenging task. It would probably be easier for you:) I know many families will play a game like Risk, Monopoly, or Settlers of Catan. Once again, snacks are critical!
Ice Cream Night – Sometimes we will have a night that involves ice cream sundaes, floats, or shakes. We gather all of the mixins that are the favorites for our house and fill the counter to let everyone make their concoctions. We will have the ninja bullet and our blender all ready to go and let kids do what they want. We also just purchased a Ninja CREAMI for Jamie for Mother’s Day, so we have also been experimenting with that. The CREAMI allows us to have some healthy options, so it has been an amazing addition to the Ice Cream Arsenal. I’ll be writing more about CREAMI in an upcoming post.
Celebrate a Family member – We try to find reasons to celebrate our kids. Maybe one of our kids did well on a big test or project they had been working on. Even working hard and finishing it is a big accomplishment. We work hard to make sure that our kids know that we are proud of them for working hard. Getting a new job is a great reason to celebrate our kids. The world is a hard place so it is good for them to know that our home is a place that they will always be loved and accepted in.
The Big Game – It is easy to use championship games like the Super Bowl, March Madness, World Series, or something like that, to have a family night! Go all out with great food and spend time together! The important thing is that you spend time together. So even if your team isn’t in the game, you can still have fun!
Home-made pizza night – This is great for those of your kids who like obscure things on their pizzas OR maybe they don’t like much of anything on them. Everyone makes their mini pizzas with their fixings and you sit around baking pizzas and eating them together. You can do this in your oven, a pizza oven, a BBQ grill or smoker! However you choose, it will be a night that your family looks forward to.
I am dying to hear about YOUR family nights! What unique things do you do with your family that I haven’t listed in this post? There are so many ways to spend time together. There are also so many ways to be distracted from spending time together. Today, we have to fight hard to make time for the things that are important to us because we know that our kids need us. Go out and make memories with your kids while you have the chance!
Please don’t forget to comment with your family night ideas!
