The holiday staycation of 2020

If you’re staying home over the holidays

Over the holidays, many people normally visit (or host) family or friends or take a trip somewhere. Due to COVID, lots of those people will be staying home. The burning question? What will we do? If you’re worried about boredom setting in, I suggest you plan a staycation. Every family is unique so your staycation won’t look exactly like someone else’s. But that’s the beauty of it! It can be custom-designed to suit you! The list below is only the tip of the iceberg and isn’t meant to be exhaustive. Poll your family members for other ideas!

• Get outside. Depending on weather and which options are available nearby (cross-country skiing, trails, tennis courts, etc.), go out for a walk, hike, activity or adventure.
• Make a plan. Spend some time researching and planning your next vacation, party or whatever other event you’d like to organize.
• Play games. With the games you already have in your house, the number of on line games and the ability to play lots of things over the internet with other people, you could spend the entire staycation playing!
• Make a COVID time capsule. 2020 has been a year like no other. Think about what most exemplifies this year and create a time capsule to be opened in the future.
• Take a Master Class. There has been an explosion of on line Master Xlasses since COVID hit. You can learn about chess, cake decorating, wood carving, Renaissance painting and just about anything else you can think of.
• Get some new photos up. You know all those pictures you take on your phone? Your staycation is a great time to go through them and select some to print. Then you send them digitally to a printer (like Shutterfly), order some frames on line and wait until the prints and frames arrive. Then you can enlist your family’s help framing them, deciding where to put them and hanging them up.
• Design garden/outdoor space. Especially during the winter, designing a garden or outdoor deck/patio or other outdoor space can be very satisfying.
• Tackle some home improvement projects. If you can’t actually complete them during the staycation, you can certainly plan out what you’ll need, figure out the budget and be ready to start work on them.
• Tour some of the world’s most popular museums, virtually. Many museums, zoos and other attractions have created virtual tours.
• Schedule zoom calls with friends and family. Create a calendar to visit with people you finally have the time to catch up with, without the cost or time it would take to travel to them.
• Get creative in the kitchen. Try some new things; experiment. Consider finding a recipe based onsome ingredients you have (try fridgetotable or supercook). You might even cook around a theme, like creating a Caribbean meal to give you a taste of what it would be like to be vacationing there.
• Organize. Personally, this isn’t my idea of a fun staycation idea, but there are people out there who actually love to organize things. Whether it’s your music, your plastic storage containers or your desk, if you enjoy having everything in it’s place, go for it.
• Start a journal. While you’re on your staycation and not working, you may want to do some writing.
• Start or rediscover a hobby. Staycations are wonderful for crafting or getting lost in a hobby. We bought a pottery wheel and kiln so our adult daughters would have something to do during their long visits home. No matter what your family enjoys (woodworking, sewing, knitting, reading, painting, calligraphy, origami, coin/stamp collecting), have fun!
• Make a family tree. This activity is perfect during COVID as it gives you a great reason to set up a call (or Zoom meeting) with family members.
• Exercise. Whether on a Peleton, a “real” bike, yoga mat or whatever else gets your metabolism up, use your staycation to focus on your health and wellness. There are loads of on line videos as well as live classes you can take from home. It’s safer than going to a gym (assuming they are even open) and exercising at home saves travel time, too.

Here are a couple of links with some additional recommendations. Try looking at staycations by state and tips from Travel and Leisure. As I said at the beginning of this post, this list is clearly not exhaustive. I hope it gives you some ideas though and would love to hear your suggestions. Just email me at jen@jenniferlebow.com. Thanks!