Last year on a random Saturday night, I decided we should have some kind of Christmas adventure with the kids. As with many of my ideas, it was completely spontaneous. But this one turned out so well we will definitely repeat it this year. Here are the basics of what we did.

I told the kids to put on their pajamas. While they were changing, I wrote down a few outdoor Christmas decorations on index cards. Once everyone was in their pajamas, I told them to put on their shoes because we were going on an adventure. I love a good impromptu adventure.

After a five-minute frenzy of excitement and shoes and much begging to know what the adventure would be, I gave them each an index card and explained that they had to work together to find all the items to win a prize.

For the cards, I tried to think of decorations that would be pretty easy to find because I didn’t want to drive around forever. It turns out I could have made it harder because we found all but one item within a block of our house! I think next time I might add multiples to the list, like 5 snowmen or 10 Santas.

Given that this was all spontaneous and we had no plan, Carlos and I decided while driving that donuts would make a good prize but realized on the way to get them that we were close to the mall. So the kids thought a visit to see Santa in their pj’s was a great prize! We have never done the Santa thing in our house but the kids still think it is fun to pretend.

It turned out to be a super fun (and free) way to end the day!

If you need a few ideas of things to look for, here are some that are pretty easy to find:

• Colored lights
• White lights
• Snowman
• Nativity scene
• An inflatable decoration
• Reindeer
• Christmas Tree
• A Lighted star