Take the Family on a Wintertime Scavenger Hunt in Colorado

We recently traveled to Colorado Springs for a wedding. We saw a lot of houses already decorated for Christmas, and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. One of our neighbors had their Christmas tree up in the middle of October.

As we were driving through Colorado Springs, I thought about those Christmas lights, but then my mind wandered to scavenger hunts during the winter. Our winters in Montrose have been mostly mild since I’ve lived here, and that could make for a fun adventure indoors or out.

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It would be easy to hunt for pinecones, snowmen, and snowflakes. However, you could hunt for other things too.

It might be easiest if you make up something like a bingo card, with images that you can search for. Once you find them, draw an “X” through the picture. Try searching a snow-covered area for a snow angel. At one point, that would have been easy to find in my backyard. The girls loved making them when they were younger. Look for animal tracks in the snow and see if you can correctly identify what animal they came from.  Icicles and snow shovels would be easy to spot too.

You could take a quick walk (or drive) around your neighborhood to see how many Christmas wreaths are out, or how many houses already have outdoor decorations up. Depending on the amount of snow, you could try to find snowmen, and make note of how many have scarves or even hats.

If it’s too cold to do your hunt outside, you could try a scavenger hunt indoors. Have your kids look up a holiday recipe and then see if you have all the ingredients in your pantry. If they’re successful in finding everything, that’s even better. Even if you’re not hunting for actual items, you could try some other fun activities.

Gather up empty boxes and give everyone a roll of wrapping paper and some tape, then see who can wrap a package the quickest. Try it without scissors to see who can not only do it the fastest but also the best. Better yet, you could employ their help in wrapping actual gifts this way. Be sure you know who is wrapping which gift, otherwise, you might end up with some surprises come Christmas day.

Another great idea, especially for all of us who like music, is to see who can name the most holiday songs.  Give each player an extra point if they get both the song and the artist who did it. If you have everyone sing the selections, you could record it and play it back next year.

Initially, I thought a scavenger hunt would be great, but maybe we should all play winter bingo instead.