At Least 22 Ways to Spice Up the Holiday Season

Written By Cari Pierce

At this time of year, most of us find ourselves hurrying to complete familiar errands and participating in necessary, often routine, activities. We plan, decorate, shop, host, wrap and visit. In the midst of it all, do you ever get the feeling that you’re walking the same paths as in other years, recreating the same season year after year? Break out of the rut. Try something different. If you’re looking for things to do this winter and holiday season, here are some great ideas…

Help a family in need. Through the Human Services Programs of Carroll County, the Neighbors in Need program helps support low income and at-risk families during the holiday season through your “adoption” of a family; donation of money or household items, clothing and gifts, or volunteering your time. Contact 410-857-2999 or visit www.hspinc.org for more information.

Host a cookie swap party. Invite friends and family to bake 10 dozen cookies of various kinds, packaged in dozen lots with the recipe attached. At the swap party, everyone chooses 10 of the cookie packages to take home – instantly giving you a wide selection of treat offerings to serve your holiday guests.

Bored with watching television and movies? Invite the neighbors over and gather the kids for a night of classic board games and cards – an evening of Monopoly, Clue, Sorry and Crazy Eights.

Celebrate the traditions of your ethnic heritage. In Italy, instead of writing letters to Santa, children write letters professing love and appreciation to their parents. The notes are placed under their father’s Christmas Eve dinner plate and read aloud at the end of the meal. In Hungary, New Year’s Day meals include some form of lentils, served with pork – a combination believed to promote wealth and luck in the coming year. Hungarians avoid eating fish or chicken on this first day of the year for fear of their luck swimming – or flying – away.

Paint pottery to give as gifts or to adorn your New Year’s table. Check out The Pottery Loft in Westminster, 410-840-3180, or Glazed to Perfection in Eldersburg, 410-552-9797.

Catch a Broadway show, a theater performance or a lively concert in Baltimore.
¥ At the Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center: Hairspray, December 20, 2005 & January 1, 2006
¥ Cats, January 10-15, 2006
¥ At the Lyric Opera House: The Moscow Ballet presents The Great Russian Nutcracker, December 16-17, 2005; West Side Story, December 26-31, 2005; B.B. King with Bobby Blue Bland and Shemekia Copeland, January 21, 2006
¥ At the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Holiday Spectacular with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, December 16-22, 2005.

Get the kids involved in making holiday wreaths. Crafty crafters would tell you that just about anything can be used to decorate a wreath. Take the children to browse craft stores, art shops, chain stores and even the grocery store to find the unique items they want to adorn their wreaths. Back at home, help them use floral wire to attach the items to the fresh or artificial wreaths for a fun afternoon of creative holiday decorating.

Take a post-holiday vacation. A week in the California desert in JanuaryÉ divine! Or, just escape for a day or two with a bus tour, like Rohrbaugh’s Charter Service’s December 28th trip to New York City and December 29-January 2 Nashville New Year’s getaway. Call 410- 374-9200 or visit www.rohrbaughs.com for more information.

Buy a cookbook devoted to soups and get one simmering to chase away winter’s chill. Try Better Homes and Gardens¨ Simple Soups & Stews cookbook.

Organize friends and neighbors to go caroling through your community. Find and print out Christmas carol lyrics at www.christmas-carols.net. Or leave the singing to others: Enjoy a concert or performance at the Carroll Arts Center. Call 410-848-7272 or visit www.carr.org/arts for event details and schedules.

Seek out the best displays of holiday lights. From the City of Frederick’s downtown display of 276,000 bulbs to the awesome decorations in the 700 block of W. 34th Street in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood, the light displays will brighten your holiday spirits. Want to find local lights? Make an event of it. With a mug of coffee for you and hot chocolate for the kids, along with some holiday cookies for snacking and a Christmas favorites CD playing, set out for an after-dinner drive. Take an hour to explore streets you don’t typically travel, to see what beautifully decorated, gaily lit houses light up Carroll County neighborhoods at this time of year.

Do more than shovel snow. Play in it. Both Patapsco Valley State Park and Patuxent River State Park have cross-country skiing terrain. Call 410-461-5005 and 301-924-2127, respectively, for details.

Organize your recipes. If you’re like most of us, your recipe box, file, or drawer is a mess. What better time to make sense of them then on a cold, gray winter afternoon? Buy standard-sized decorative printer paper and spend a few hours typing up each of your recipes on the computer. You might even print holiday recipes on seasonally themed paper and your favorite summer dishes on beach-themed stock. Print the recipes and organize them in a three-ring binder for easy reference and storage. Looking for a great gift idea? Print extra recipe copies and make personal cookbooks for your friends, family, coworkers or teachers.

Visit a garden center or nursery for an afternoon of browsing and shopping during the holidays. Valley View Farms in Cockeysville is transformed at Christmas like no other. The nursery is lit with over 50,000 twinkling lights and the property boasts 140 decorated trees. In addition, Valley View’s International Gift Shop offers a unique selection of decorations, bows, accessories, lights and gifts. Visit the nursery at 11035 York Road or check out www.valleyviewfarms.com for more information.

Go to your New Year’s Eve party in style. A vintage or luxury limousine is a memorable way to travel safely and make a grand entrance. Unique vehicles are widely available, including a 1954 classic Bentley and a super stretch Hummer H2 through Lasting Impressions in Carroll County. Call Lasting Impressions Deejay and Limousine Service at call 410-848-6898 or visit www.lastingimpressions.com.

Enjoy holiday decorations and explore the historic farmhouse at the Carroll County Farm Museum’s Holiday Tour, December 2-4 and 9- 11, 2005. The Farm Museum features visits by Santa, wagon rides and refreshments on the weekends. Call 410-876-2667 for more information.

Spend a Friday evening with the kids during school’s winter break at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Through the aquarium’s Fridays After Five program, every Friday evening through February 24, 2006, children of all ages get a special $7.50 admission price between 5-8 pm to explore the aquarium until 10 pm. Call 410-576-3800 for details.

Host an escape-the-winter-blahs party! Make it a potluck supper with active games or celebrate the things that remind you of summer, serving margaritas with a buffet of grilled dishes and fresh salads, followed by a showing of a classic summer movie like The Endless Summer or Beach Blanket Bingo. For the ultimate cabin fever buster, you can make the party a true escape from indoors. Several Maryland State parks feature snowmobiling trails on old logging roads for those who own their own equipment. Visit the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Web site, www.dnr.state.md.us, for more details. For a full service snowmobiling adventure, check out the snowmobiling tours offered at Western Maryland’s Deep Creek Lake’s Wisp Resort, www.skiwisp.com.

Mall walk. The exercise is best known for its summer beat-the-heat benefits, but mall walking in the winter months is a great way to get the heart pumping – sheltered from the harsh weather – and possibly to lose a little pre- or post-holiday weight. Plus, you can do a little window-shopping for gift ideas or for a self-indulgent gift-for-yourself splurge.

Sweeten your holidays with a Christmas visit to Hershey. Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a winter – and chocolate – wonderland during the holidays. The Hershey Park Christmas Candylane has FREE admission to the festive decorations and twinkling lights along this village street, lined with unique gift shops and featuring a 50-foot tall “KISSmas” tree. Call 1-800-HERSHEY or visit www.hersheypa.com for more information.

Make choosing a Christmas tree or buying a wreath a day-trip excursion. Most tree farms in Carroll and the surrounding counties offer cutyour- own, as well as pre-cut trees. Many farms, in addition to selling a wide selection of holiday ornaments, also offer hot chocolate or cider, fresh wreaths and greens, hayrides and other activities. Get the whole family involved and stock up for all your holiday decorating needs.

Practice being a kid again. Come on, Mom and Dad. Put on your snow gear and take a ride down the hill or flap your limbs in pursuit of the perfect snow angel. Nothing puts a smile on your face or a rosy glow to your cheeks faster than playing in the snow. Don’t have kids of your own? Don’t let that stop you, make snowmen with your sister’s kids, have a snowball fight with your brother’s children or build igloos with the neighborhood teens.

With so much to do during this holiday season: call an old friend, learn to knit, or clean out your closets and host a clothes-swap gathering with your friends and family. Above all, remember why we celebrate this time of year. Practice random and anonymous acts of charity and generosity, and give thanks for your blessings.

Happy Holidays!