Family Fun Night

Organizing family fun nights can be as simple as building a Family Fun Activity Kit. Start by picking your storage box; a laundry basket with a lid works well. Decorate it as a family, or let the kids decorate it with some of their best-loved drawings and cutouts.

Now that your box is completed, let the fun begin. Choose a few of your best-loved games, movies or books. The old standbys, such as Chess, Checkers, Monopoly, Uno, and Mille Bornes, are good choices. With the books, you can start your own book club. Discuss your likes and dislikes and why. Dress up and act out some of your favorite scenes. Then, once a week add a new game or movie to your Family Fun Activity Kit. Along with the games, add craft items so you can make presents for each other.

You can schedule a Family Fun Night by serving a treasured family recipe or try something new. After your special dinner, you can open your Family Fun Activity Kit and play a game, watch a movie together, read some of your favorite books or prepare a craft.

When you've played with everything in your Family Fun Activity Kit, create a Family Fun Activity Jar. Write your family members' suggestions on strips of paper, fold them in half and drop them into your jar. Shake it up once a week, and draw out a strip to see what your family will do for Family Fun Night.

However you choose to spend the night or day, include your whole family in the planning and preparations. If cooking a recipe passed down, explain to your children its roots and why it is special to you. Nothing is better shared than family heritage or traditions. You might learn something new about each other and in the process create new traditions.

It is not what you choose to do that is important-it is the time you share with your family and the traditions your Family Fun night will create that will last a life time. You will pass memories to your children that they will share with their children someday.