‘Tis the Season to Move!

‘Tis the season to move.  It is a time to be joyful, merry, and bright, but it’s also a time of high energy, excitement, and busyness!  Grownups have a lot to do … baking, shopping, decorating, and wrapping presents.  Those holiday activities can leave us feeling exhausted and drained.  

Kids, on the other hand, often find themselves with more time than they know what to do with!  School work starts to become less demanding during this time as attention is given to celebrations and such. Extracurricular activities start winding down and parents are busy with all of the holiday prep.

With so much to look forward to as the holidays approach, it’s natural for kids to get extra excited and even stressed! And if your kids are like many others, then you’re very familiar with how the holiday season turns them into an interesting mix of bouncy balls, chatterboxes, and mini-tornadoes. 

To help kids redirect all the Christmas energy and excitement into positive motion, we have listed a few quick holiday fitness activities to distract them in any circumstance.  With seasonal themes, these prompts are created to engage your kids in fun holiday motion as they burn off that energy. 

When you find the holiday fitness prompts suggesting the use of common household materials, just grab what you have as they are optional.  You can tweak any activity to best fit the needs of your family.

• Do 10 gingerbread jumps (jumping jacks).
• Pretend you’re a Nutcracker. Dance like one (stiff like a robot) to your favorite Christmas songs.
• Get in a push-up position. Pretend you’re a snowman and try to push your carrot nose into the snow below you. Do 3 – 5 push-ups.
• You’re a reindeer practicing for take-off. Bend down and touch the floor, then spring up and jump as high as you can.  Repeat 5 times.
• Leap like a reindeer over the rooftops and over the trees.  Space apart couch pillows on the floor and try leaping over them if you can.
• Pull Santa’s sleigh! Using a rope and a trash bag full of pillows or stuffed animals, pull Santa’s sleigh down the hall. Remember not to go too fast or too slow so the presents don’t topple out of the sleigh.
• Pretend you’re hanging lights on your Christmas tree. Reach one hand out in front of you while lifting the opposite leg out behind you. Hold for 5 seconds. Switch sides.
• Use a water bottle or book and do 5 bicep curls on each arm. Pretend that there is a candy cane in the crease of your elbow to crush.
• Practice your reindeer trot. Gallop around the room for a few minutes concentrating on getting those knees high and your strides long.
• Stand like a gingerbread man. Reach your left elbow as you bring your right knee up and tap. Switch. Repeat 5 times.
• Being agile is a very important skill when you’re a reindeer. Try to weave in and out of the Christmas trees (5-10 plastic cups setup in a row 2 feet apart on the floor).