The destination? Home! Take a family trip without leaving the comfort of your living room
When Covid-19 hit shortly before Pesach four years ago, and we were left scrambling to make do in a situation unlike any we’d ever encountered, the result was a Yom Tov unique on so many fronts. That was the year we discovered how much fun we could have on chol hamoed without actually leaving our home. So many people got unbelievably creative back then, finding ways to go on chol hamoed “trips” while on lockdown. We don’t have to wait for another pandemic, though, to experience our home as a destination.
In the struggle to keep our children entertained over long summer days, we may feel pressured to take them on long, exhausting trips. If you are a homebody like me, you can explore some of these ideas that will turn your home into the trip.
They will do wonders for your wallet, but the benefits extend beyond the purely financial. It stretches our creativity and helps our children find joy in less. We can have fun in simple ways; not everything has to be out there and extravagant. And most importantly, by bringing the trip home we are positioning our home as the place to be, as opposed to the place we run away from to go somewhere more exciting. Making our home a place of fun and joy helps our children forge deeper bonds to the home, and hopefully by extension, the values of the home.
Try it! Take a trip to the:
Bowling Alley
All you need for a bowling alley right at home are ten seltzer bottles and a ball.
You can make your pins look more realistic – and turn this into more of a project – by painting or spray painting your seltzer bottles white, and making two stripes with red masking tape.
On a smooth surface, either hardwood floor inside or a concrete patio outside, set up your “lane.” You’ll want to experiment with filling your seltzer bottles with water or sand so they have some weight. How much will depend on what level challenge you want and what kind of ball you are using. Try it out until you get the right balance.
You can mark the lane with tape, and even give the option of bumpers by setting up a line of sticks, rocks or any commodity you can find, along the edges of the lane. If you are the competitive type, use a dry erase board as a scoreboard, and bowl away!
Trampoline Park
My children love dragging mattresses into the living room and playing trampoline park. You can set up your own trampoline park using mattresses, ball pit balls if you have, and any props that would make it more exciting. (Think: mini trampolines, slides, gymnastics bar, even the couch, if you can factor it into your setup.) If your home set up allows for it safely, lay a mattress down a short flight of stairs to make a slide. Turn on music and have a blast jumping from mattress to mattress. You can alternate between free jump and organized games. Here are some of the games my children invented:
Musical Mattress – set up the mattresses so that there are spaces between them. Then, turn on the music as everyone runs in a circle, from mattress to mattress. When the music stops, whoever is on the floor and not on a mattress is out.
Mattress Twister – cut out circles of different color construction paper and then tape them to your mattresses, one per color per person. Then call out, “Red,” and everyone has to jump to one of the red circles without sharing with anyone else. You can only get there by stepping on other circles that don’t have anyone on it; if you step on the mattress itself, you are out.
These are just a couple that we came up with; I’m sure you can think of more!
Miniature Golf Course
We once bought a cute little miniature golf set from Five Below that we used to turn our backyard into a miniature golf range, but you don’t need even that much. Get creative while setting up the course in your backyard, playroom or anywhere you have space. You don’t have to dig actual holes in your yard; you can make makeshift holes using string to make a small almost-closed circle, with just enough space to get a ball in. Stick a stake with a numbered card attached at each course, and use tape, an upside down plate, another stake or anything you want to mark the starting point for each hole. Grab a makeshift putt?? And ball based on what you have in or around your house. Hockey stick? Broomstick? Ping pong ball? Silver foil ball? Get creative! Add excitement to your course by fashioning different obstacles–a pile of dirt along the path. A small ramp made out of a slab of cardboard or a plank of wood on a shoe box or brick. A pan of water. You can put each child in charge of one hole and see how original they get.
Skating Rink
As a child, we had a large, uncarpeted basement. On occasion, we would push all of the furniture to the side to create an empty floor. We’d strap on our roller blades, turn on the music at the highest volume, and have race around our “rink.”
If you have enough space, invite some friends over and enjoy a roller skating or blading party. Move the dining room table, living room couches, etc. to the side to create enough space, turn on music and enjoy! If you have any glow in the dark items or disco balls, you can create cool lighting effects for an extra exciting experience.
Restaurant
Going out to eat is a special treat, and while you can’t quite replicate it at home, you can come pretty close. Your children take turns running the restaurant, serving as waiters, and as customers. The owner makes the menu, with your permission. You can allow them to use only what is readily available, or you can purchase items special or allow them to cook to order.
We’ve done it when there was nothing special in the house, and the kids got creative with the menu. For example:
- Rice cakes with your choice of toppings: Cream cheese, Peanut butter, Melted cheese, Unmelted cheese, Ketchup and cheese, Mustard and pickles
- Yogurt: Vanilla, Coffee, Greek vanilla, Greek strawberry
- With your choice of oats, chocolate chips or fruity pebbles, etc.
- Drinks: Cold water, Warm water, Hot water, Orange juice, Orange juice mixed with water, Pickle juice, Pickle-orange juice
You get the idea. The restaurant owner makes a special menu and hands it to customers who then place their order. If you have waiters, they can come around to the tables to take orders, and if not, the customer approaches the owner directly. Ideally, there is a counter for the owner to stand behind and feel official. The owner then prepares the food and calls out the order as they are ready.
This works for other types of eateries as well. You can have an ice cream party with choices of ice creams, syrups and toppings. Ramp things up a notch by whipping out the blender and making razzles another choice. For the mommy who is a trooper, add coffee floats to the menu. Between Carpools featured a “Let’s Pretend Restaurant” over here.
Museum
This destination might be more fun to create than actually visit, so consider it an activity more than a trip.
Create the museum of your choice using items from around the house, clippings from magazines and newspapers, and any interesting items you can find. Either set them up around a room or your whole house or tape them to the walls of one room or around the house.
Take the family on a guided tour where you show them the displays and talk about them, or put in the work beforehand writing descriptions on “plaques” and including them with the displays. For example: You can find pictures of pretty pieces of jewelry and cut them out, or use your own jewelry and put them in glass “displays” – glasses, jars, vases etc. Make a sign, “Museum of Royal Jewelry,” and then give each piece a fake backstory. “Now, this broach was worn by the second Queen of Catchupspille Valley upon her coronation in 1672, etc.”
If you want to go meaningful instead of silly, try displaying pictures of nature and describing to your kids how it works and the beauty of Hashem’s world.
You can get really sentimental and create a “Museum of Family History,” and display pictures and artifacts from their past. How much you have to display may depend on how much of a hoarder sentimental person you are. “And here, dear kinderlach, is a used napkin from my and Tatty’s vort.” “This is kallah Ruchy’s first tooth, which fell out right in middle of her chumash play, during her solo.”
Every child can have a turn to create a museum of their choice, or they can work together to create one large museum. You can even designate one room of the house for each child, giving them the leeway to create a museum of their choice. When everyone is ready, the family goes from room to room, with the child in charge of that room serving as the guide.
Performance
Taking in a concert, a play or any kind of show can be fun, and you surely have enough talent in your own home to produce your own. Have each child (maybe a parent too!) prepare a show to put on for the rest of the family, or have them work together to put on a play.
You can make a concert, either by lip syncing to their favorite singers, or singing on their own. Is there a funny Daddy or older sibling? They can perform a stand-up comedy routine. There are magic shows and stunt shows (stay safe, though!) juggling, unicycling, jump roping, etc. You can make a bubble show by filling a small kiddy pool with bubble solution, have a child stand in the pool and use a hoola hoop to surround the child with a giant bubble.
String a curtain across the room, set up milk crates or even chairs to create a stage and designate chairs for the audience. If your family is so inclined, you can even invite friends, relatives and neighbors to your show.
I’m sure you can come up with many other ideas to turn your home into an oasis of fun, laughter and joy. I’d love to hear some of them!
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Beyond adorable, love these ideas! Thank you for sharing!
Fradyl, thank you for posting this! I love that the ideas are refreshingly creative and low-key; just good genuine fun!