Hmmm...how to keep the kids busy at the family Christmas party?

Here are a few of our favorite ideas:

• Set up a craft station to make ornaments. Stock up on popsicle sticks, pompoms, pipe cleaners, beads and glue. Let the kids create!
  

• Have some "Minute to Win It" type games ready to go. Have the kids race each other to stack six metal nuts (from the hardware store) on top of each other using only a pencil (no hands!). Last year, at our family Christmas, one of the challenges was to put cookies on our foreheads and get them into our mouths by simply scrunching up our faces -- lots of laughs with that one! Check out the Minute to Win It website for more game ideas.

• Have a white elephant gift exchange: all the gifts have to be something from home that you don't need (want!) anymore. Each person can open a new gift or "steal" someone else's when it's their turn.

• Give the kids gingerbread men or sugar cookies to decorate with icing and candies. Put the icing into Ziploc bags and snip off the corners so that kids can squeeze out the icing.

• Set out a stocking and a bucket full of a bunch of household items. Let the kids take turns putting an item into the stocking and turns guessing what's inside just by feeling it.

Hope you have fun at your holiday get-togethers this year. We're sure looking forward to ours!