Merry and bright: The 2025 holiday fun list

I went into NYC for meetings yesterday. The train station experience in PHL was a bit more stressful than it should it been — the garage where I have parked for every train trip for 14 years was mysteriously FULL, truly no spots, so I had to park in a surface lot about a 8 minute walk away, which I hadn’t built into my schedule! — but when I arrived in NYC I found the city was decorated for the holidays. I walked past the Macy’s windows, and through Bryant Park, where the annual Winter Village is in full swing. It put me in a festive mood.

So I figured it’s time to share my annual holiday fun list! I have been making some version of this list for the past 10 years (at least). The idea is to bring a little order to the holiday season, and make sure I know what I and my family would most like to do to enjoy this festive time. There are a lot of options, and by thinking this through, we increase the chances of making most of this happen. So here’s what’s in the plan:

Visit Luminature. I have tickets for this light show at the Philadelphia Zoo for me and my younger kids this weekend (I believe others will be going to Wicked). My train home from NYC yesterday passed the zoo so I got a sneak preview. It’s very cool looking! I’m sure we will wind up purchasing glow stick type toys and hot chocolate, as that is part of the deal. (There may be a bonus trip to the Morris Arboretum light display, but that isn’t set yet.)

Go to Dutch Wonderland. This will be a Thanksgiving weekend activity, and I now have 7 anytime tickets since my oldest will be home from college. I’m not sure the oldest kids will want to go but…maybe this will be forced family fun!

Go to Longwood Gardens. I may go more than once. It is often hard to get a reservation for this on peak holiday nights, so about two years ago I started springing for the membership level where you don’t have to make reservations. Now I feel like I have the hot ticket since I can go anytime! We will likely stop at the Brandywine Museum of Art on the way, since they have a holiday train set-up.

Visit Winterthur. I plan to do this on my own as a birthday activity, as my general sense is that most of the rest of my family is not into historic homes. They have a dollhouse I’d like to see in addition to the decorations.

Sing in several Christmas concerts. I will sing in two “Carols by Candlelight” shows with my downtown choir, and then in an Advent concert with my church choir. I’ll also sing in the Christmas Eve service (the 8:30 p.m. one, not the 11 p.m. one, as that might mean Santa would have a hard time stopping by our house). My 5-year-old will sing in the children’s choir for a service (I understand that I have been tapped to help with back-up vocals + supervision on this one), and he’ll be in the church pageant.

Go out for a nice birthday dinner. This is booked for after one of my holiday concerts.

Do holiday cookie baking. I have tentatively scheduled a baking session for the afternoon of December 7th. Yes, even though baking can happen flexibly, it helps to have a target time when everything is busy. We’ll put the dough together on the 6th so it can chill ahead of time.

Wear my flapper costume to my husband’s office party. So they are doing a “Roaring 20s” theme this year. I decided to go all out and purchased a flapper dress from Amazon. It is amazingly well constructed and decently flattering — a pleasant surprise. I also purchased a flapper headband and accessories set. I’ve gone to this party for a great many years, so it’s kind of fun to shake things up a little.

Go ice skating. This was a kid request, and the rink downtown on the river is quite nice as long as the weather cooperates. We might go post Christmas too.

Go to the Nutcracker. I missed this last year so I’m really looking forward to it. I might also wind up going into NYC to see the Rockettes again — this would be with two of the kids while the others are elsewhere so it’s all a negotiation at the moment. There may be a trip to the NY Botanical Gardens in January, as the holiday display set-up is open through to the second weekend.

Get matching family pajamas. My daughter is in charge of this selection this year.

Build the holiday Lego set. It’s a train this year. I bought the set, we just need to get going on it. I’ll also do some holiday-themed puzzles.

Do sibling presents. This is occasionally stressful for me as the kids need to go shopping for each other but they like having this as a tradition, so we’re in for it.

Read holiday children’s books. We’ve pulled out the old favorites and have already read Christmas Farm and Little Blue Truck’s Christmas (the batteries are dead on the light up page on that one, so I need to fix it). I don’t think we have that many more years for these to get read so after 18 years of reading children’s books to people I’m trying to appreciate that this chapter (ha) is winding down.

Decorate. We have lights up in the yard now, and the fancy tree has gone up in the living room. We’ll get the family tree (the live one) over Thanksgiving weekend and decorate that. It’s fun to keep adding to collections over time.

Have many enjoyable moments during our holiday family travel. We’ll be taking a fairly epic trip over the holiday vacation with all 7 of us. Family travel is never all blissful, and I know parts will be stressful, so I’m reminding myself to aim for a few enjoyable, memorable moments. That I am pretty sure will happen.

What’s on your holiday fun list?

Photo: Scene from the Macy’s windows