Christmas Family Night

We enjoy celebrating Christmas together as a family and since this is a busy time of year, we keep our Christmas Family Nights pretty simple.  After dinner, we have done various activities.  Last Friday we had a cookie decorating competition (can you tell our family is competitive). We each chose two cookies and decorated them however we wanted.  Then we voted on the ones we liked best-we couldn't vote for our own.  In the end, Emma won after a run off with Dan. We finished off the night by watching Home Alone. 

I home school our three children; and this week the kids and I have been studying one country a day and the customs that they follow for Christmas.  Friday is Mexico.  We are making luminaries (farolitas).  Then in the evening, we are going to have enchiladas and bunuelos for dessert.  Then we are going to go look at Christmas lights.  A funny tradition we have is getting Blizzards from Dairy Queen and eating them while we drive around looking at lights (you would think we would have hot chocolate).

It is fun to incorporate a job like decorating the Christmas tree into a family night (or day).  After we put up the tree, we read The First Christmas Tree, which puts the focus on Christ.  Then we all decorate the tree while listening to Christmas music and eating cookies.  For us it is important to not get too busy and focus on the reason why we celebrate Christmas-God sending His Son to earth as His gift to us. I hope each of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 
Feel free to share some of your families Christmas traditions.

"Chopped" Family Night

My family and I sometimes like to watch the TV show "Chopped" on Food Network.  It is a competition with chefs to see who can make the best dish with 4 ingredients already picked for them.  The items that the chefs are given can be a bit bizarre (gefilte fish anyone???). The show begins with four chefs, with each chef being given the same ingredients-in a convenient basket- for each round. There is an appetizer round, an entree round, and a dessert round.  To make matters worse, they are given a certain amount of time, usually 20-30 minutes in which to cook their dishes. After each round is over, their dish is judged by a panel of three judges.  Whoever has the worst dish is "chopped" after each round. The last one standing is the Chopped Champion and wins $10,000!  So we were inspired to try our own "Chopped" competition.

My son, Alec, decided that he wanted this to be his family night, so he came up with the ingredients for our baskets.  In the first round, we were all given a box with gordita shells, horseradish, persimmons, and a can of pears.  We had 30 minutes to come up with something edible! All of us, except Zachary, prepared a variation of chips and salsa.  Zach on the other hand made a meatless taco with horseradish in place of sour cream.  Needless to say, Zach was chopped because Alec took one bite of his taco and spit it out.


Then it was down to three of us.  Dan won the round, so he got to have Zach as a helper.  In the next round, we had canned chicken, bacon, Chocolate Frosted Flakes, and this weird cranberry/granola crunch.  I couldn't think of anything to make for awhile, except for mashed potatoes and I added cheese and the bacon.  Then I heated up the chicken with some spices.  I reduced (don't I sound professional?) the Chocolate Frosted Flakes with some water and balsamic vinegar and strained it to make a dressing (I added olive oil when it cooled down). Then I put my dressing on spinach leaves with the cranberry granola.  Emma made a salad with all the ingredients mixed together with some dressing added.  Dan cleverly thought up making a chicken potpie with the food items we were given.  After our cooking time was over, Alec decided that Emma would be chopped and Dan won round 2.  Well, this was most disappointing because I do most of the cooking in our house and consider it a hobby of mine.

Round 3 came around putting Dan and I against each other and I was determined to beat him!   Zach was Dan's helper and Emma was mine.  We were given chocolate bars, fortune cookies, and chopped pecans.  My fourth ingredient was crushed saltine crackers and since Dan won the second round, he got Rice Crispies!  Emma and I made chocolate covered fortune cookies sprinkled with pecans.  We also made some "cookies" by melting the chocolate bar and adding the crushed crackers and some pecans.  Then we hardened them in the freezer (they were surprisingly good).  Dan and Zachary made a variation on Rice Crispy treats.  They combined the Rice Crispies and crushed fortune cookies with melted marshmallows.  After hardening in the freezer, they topped them off with the pecans and some chocolate shavings.  This round I actually won!!! But needless to say my son "chopped" me because his dad did better over all.  Oh well, it was a lot of fun and harder than I thought. If any of you try this family night, please tell me what food items you used and what dishes you came up with.  And by the way, our chopped champion won a dollar!

Survivor Night

According to my husband, Dan, our first Family Night was a Survivor Night.  If you aren't familiar with the television show, 16-18 people are left stranded- generally on an island.  They are split up on two teams and then compete in challenges against one another.  Towards the end of each episode, the two teams compete in an immunity challenge.  The winning team gets to go back to their camp; the losers go to tribal counsel.  At tribal counsel, each person would write down a name of someone on their tribe to vote off and send home. This is just a rough description.  You can check out more about the show here.

Dan divided us into two teams: boys against the girls (he was the host).  The first thing we had to do was come up with a tribe name.  You could also make a tribal flag with your name on it, as well.  Then we had to do an immunity challenge.  Our challenge was to eat a variety of mostly tropical fruits.  I know that doesn't sound too bad, but he bought some unique types of fruit (kiwi, star fruit, mango, papaya), as well as bananas, strawberries, and coconut milk (from a coconut, not a can). We had three rounds.  For each round, Dan would bring out a different plate.  For example, round 1: bananas, strawberries, kiwi.  My daughter, Emma would pick a fruit and eat all of that fruit, and then my son, Zachary.  Then I ate one of the fruits left and then my son, Alec. If you couldn't eat all of your fruit, you lost. I almost didn't make it to the next round because I have trouble eating bananas.  Something about the texture!  Everyone completed what was on the plate and we went onto round 2: star fruit, mango, papaya.  We followed the same procedure.  We then made it to round 3: coconut milk.  I don't know if you have ever tried the milk straight from the coconut, but it isn't very pleasant in my opinion. In fact, Emma and I couldn't drink all of it, but Alec did.  So the boys won and my family voted me out!! We only did one challenge, but you could have other challenges like: who can stand on one foot the longest or who can knock down a series of targets.  You can really make most anything into a challenge, just try to be creative and have fun.

On the show Survivor, the participants usually don't eat a wide variety of food.  For dinner we just ate chicken and rice.  It would not be Survivor without rice!  While you eat, you could watch the show.  After dinner, we played a Survivor game that Dan found on DVD.  You can sometimes find good deals on games if you keep your eyes open. We have built Family Nights on different games we have bought.  I will write more about that at a later post.  Let me know if you can come up with your own challenges.

Football Night!

This is a Family Night we actually have not done before, but plan on doing so in the near future.  My cousin gave me the idea when she asked me for some ideas to make football more fun.  We are huge Seahawks fans, so we sort of have a mini family night each week when they are on TV.  First of all we all have to wear our Seahawks shirts (wear whatever team you like or just their colors if you don't have a shirt with a logo on it).  We also like to decorate when we have Super Bowl parties or watch Seahawks games.  You can go all out with streamers and balloons; plates, cups and napkins if you like.  Our daughter, Emma, likes to make Seahawks signs to display when they play.  Give your kids poster board and markers or paints of your favorite team and have them come up with their own signs.

When we watch football we like to have taco bowls (a recipe by Rachel Ray).  The recipe is posted at the end.  You can come up with ideas that go along with football, for example: nachos, pizza, wings etc.  For dessert: football shaped cake! Buy cake mix of your favorite variety and bake in a rectangular pan.  Cut in the shape of a football and frost with chocolate frosting.  Pipe laces with white frosting.

If you don't want to watch a game or there isn't one on, you can play touch football.  My family likes to do this Thanksgiving morning, but why not do this another time. If the weather is too bad to play in (unless you are hard core), play tabletop football. 

The following are some ideas we have done for Super Bowl parties that would work for a Football Family Night:  bingo-the bingo that we downloaded for our Super Bowl party would not work for just any game, but I found a couple websites (and linked one of them here) that offer free bingo cards.  You have to register to get a certain amount for free.

Another game we have played is match the football team to their city, you can find that here.  

Taco Bowls, from Rachael Ray
  4 servings

1 sack tortilla chips
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
2 pounds ground beef
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 firm avocados
4 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
A handful of fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
4 cups shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high hear.  Add 2 tablespoons of the EVOO.  Add the beef to the skillet and brown and crumble it for 5 minutes.  To the browned meat add half the chopped jalapeno, three fourths of the chopped onions, and all of the garlic.  Season the meat with the cumin, chili powder, and salt and pepper.  Cook them together for 5 minutes more, then add about a cup of water and reduce the heat to low.

Halve and separate the avocados. Remove the pit with a spoon.  Use a small knife to dice the avocado while still in the skin.  Scoop out the diced flesh and place it in a bowl.  Combine the tomatoes, remaining onions, remaining jalapeno, and the cilantro gently with the avocado and dress the salad with the lemon juice, the remaining tablespoon of EVOO, and salt to taste.

Layer a handful or two of the chips (slightly crushed) into soup or chili bowls and top them with a handful of cheese.  Fill the bowls with taco meat and top with more cheese, then mound some salad on top and serve.

What have you done with your family to make watching football together fun?  What kind of football related traditions does your family have?

Halloween Family Night 2013

 Here are some pictures from our latest Halloween Family Night.  We had fun dressing up!  We watched the Halloween episode of Duck Dynasty and since it mentioned "Thriller", my husband found the music video on line.  The kids had never seen it before.  We did a skeleton scavenger hunt.  That was all I had planned, but we were still in the partying mood, so then we played hide-and-go-seek in the dark and then watched a movie.

 As we were getting ready to make our calzone snake, we remembered that we didn't follow the recipe that I posted exactly.  I mentioned making a couple changes, all we did was put in ingredients for a regular pizza: a tomato based pizza sauce (I make a homemade one, but you can buy sauce too-Bobali is good), mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and mushrooms.

Halloween Family Night

I honestly do not remember our very first Family Night, but since it is almost Halloween I thought we would start there.  The best thing about this Family Night was dressing up and the food! We have done this two years in a row.  It is fun trying to come up with a costume with items you already own.  As you can see from the picture, I was a redneck (and yes we already had the crazy hair).  My daughter, Emma, came up with the idea to do a Halloween Family Night and she wanted to find some recipes that would go along with our theme.  After doing a search on the internet (where we get some of our ideas), I found some great recipes. 
For our main course we had a "Spooky Calzone Snake"  (we adjust the recipe according to what we like in a calzone, for example, we don't use the ricotta cheese and we added sausage)and to drink we had "Boo Beverage".  Both of which were so good we have made them the last two years and will probably make them again this year.  My family and I love desserts, so we had to incorporate that into our night as well.  The first year Emma and I made "Spider Cupcakes" and last year we made "Black Cat Brownie" (if you want a thicker "cat", use 2 boxes of brownie mix).  This year we are going to go with "Pudding Dirt Cups"-you can add whatever you like to make it more "gross", like gummy worms or any Halloween themed candy.  After dinner, we enjoyed watching Nightmare Before Christmas and a few Scooby Doo episodes. One activity the kids enjoy doing are scavenger or treasure hunts, which they like to make up on their own.  The first year we did a Halloween Family Night, my daughter hid her stuffed cats with clues.  She gave us a clue to start with and it led to the first cat, which led us to another cat (and so on).  The last clue led to some treasure (which was some candy). This year I found a game that sounds like fun and we might try is a skeleton scavenger hunt.
That's an idea of what our family has done in the past and is planning to do this year.  What are some of the things that your family likes to do for Halloween?

Welcome to our Family Nights!

First off let me tell you a little about my family and I.  My husband and I have been married 18 years and have 3 wonderful kids: Alec (15), Zachary (13), and Emma (11). My husband is a pastor and I home school our children.  We have done Family Nights for a long time now and we love it!

Family Night came about because of a desire to bring our family together and have fun.  The problem was that I could not find any books or materials that had Family Night ideas just for fun. Don't get me wrong, there is a place for family devotions and learning times, but we wanted time just for goofing off and growing closer as a family. So since we couldn't find any resources, we decided to come up with our own Family Nights.

Our family set aside one night a week for our Family Night, in our case, Fridays.  We try and reserve this night just for our Family Night, but life happens (sports, youth group activities, etc) and we have to be flexible. Sometimes we have to change nights; other times we will skip a couple weeks.  When life gets hectic, we will just have pizza and a movie (recently we took a few weeks and watched the Avengers movie and all the movies relating to it for our Family Night). We rotate each week as to who is in charge.  Whose ever night it is, they have to come up with a theme and one or more activities. They also get to choose what to have for dinner and often our food even goes with the nights theme.  Sometimes we even dress up. Also, keep in mind the ages of your kids and what is appropriate at their age level.  When it is the kids' turn, they have to check in with mom or dad as to what they are going to do on their night. Our Family Night rule: No Complaining!!

Each week I will post a Family Night theme that we have done and maybe add some new things that we could have done or what I would have done differently.   You may even see some pictures that we have taken from time to time. Please feel free to use our ideas or adjust them to fit your family.  Even little ones can plan a night, with help from dad or mom. I hope this will inspire you to try a Family Night and maybe make it a tradition in your household.  If you have any questions or ideas you would like to share, please leave a comment.