Decorate the Winter Solstice With Glow Games
For most of this year, it was figuratively dark. But today, darkness also literally hangs over us: today is the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year and therefore the longest night of the year. This makes this a perfect night to play glowing games with your kids.
You don’t have to be super crafty to host your First Annual Glow Games during the Winter Solstice. All you need is a supply of glow sticks or glowing bracelets / necklaces, your imagination and darkness.
Bowling alley
How much fun would it be to go to one of those evening events at your local bowling alley? So much fun! But you know you can’t do it right now, so you should instead create your own glowing bowling alley at home. Here’s how:
- Buy bottled water.
- Remove labels.
- Insert one glow stick in each bottle.
- Replace the caps.
- Line them up like bowling pins.
- Take a ball (soccer ball, basketball, whatever you have).
- Turn off the light.
- Bowl.
Glowing Ring Throw
Use glowing necklaces as rings (or 2-3 glowing bracelets linked together). If you don’t have a ring flip game yet, just find something in the house to flip the rings. (Hey, one of those water bottles from your bowling set will do.)
Luminous hula hoop necklace
Attach as many glowing necklaces as needed to make one large hoop, tape, or zip fastener on a regular hula hoop and put on the hula.
Luminous Bracelet Tic-Tac-Toe
Use connected straightened glowing necklaces to create the lines that make up the plank. Instead of playing with crosses and the letters “O”, everyone uses “O” (glowing bracelets), but each player has a different color. This is how it will look when it’s done.
Finish with a glowing bathroom
Fill the tub, turn off the lights, and throw a bunch of glow sticks into the water. If your child loves the bath, you are now a hero. If your child doesn’t like the bath, this is probably the one time you don’t have to drag him into the bath.
This story was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated on December 21, 2020 to provide current information and alignment with the current style of Lifehacker.