Polar Express Christmas – Holiday Fun For Families

This Christmas, the Polar Express Playdatebox is making the holiday magical at Grandma’s house.

We’ve cooked up six fun Playdates you can enjoy together as you prepare for family gatherings both far and near. Build your own box using our free recipes and printables.

We’ve based our own holiday celebration around the Christmas classic, Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg.  We love the trains, jingle bells, and hot chocolate themes from this book, but you can choose one that is a favorite in your own family. Send a copy of the book both to Grandma and Grandpa (they may already have their own copy of a family favorite) and order a second copy for the children in your own home. 

If you are celebrating remotely, you can either read together via FaceTime, or share your screen and listen to Liam Neeson narrate Polar Express as you listen together. 

Make Hot Cocoa “As thick and rich as melted chocolate bars”

This is not going to be your “dump it out of a package” kind of hot cocoa. You’ll each make your own recipe of hot cocoa on both sides of the video call. Since this is a real celebration, try making real homemade hot cocoa out of 4 simple ingredients: 

• 4 cups whole milk
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• ¼ cup sugar

Just warm the ingredients together in a pan until the hot cocoa is heated and all of the chocolate chips have melted. Add whipped cream or marshmallows on top if you like. Or whisk in a little cinnamon, a splash of vanilla, or some mint flavoring.  

We’ll be serving our hot cocoa in festive paper cups with candy-stripe straws. If you have long-distance family, provide festive drinkware on both sides of your remote call and enjoy sipping your hot chocolate by the firelight. It will be almost like you are home for Christmas!

Can you just smell it now? The scent of the molasses and the ginger going into the mixing bowl? The fragrance of the cookies baking in the oven? Why not let Grandma or Grandpa teach the grandchildren how to make gingerbread cookies with their own private cooking show? Gather ingredients in each location, then sign into a Zoom meeting with as many grandchildren as would like to attend, each in a different location. Grandma or Grandpa will demonstrate, and the kids can follow along, duplicating the process in their own kitchens. 

You’ll find our favorite gingerbread cookie recipe in the small gingerbread cookbook we’ve prepared for you. We’ve included a template for a train cutout in case you don’t happen to have train-shaped cookie cutters on hand. Just print the template from page 6 of the cookbook onto sturdy cardstock, then lay it over your rolled-out gingerbread and cut around the template with a knife. 

Since we are going with a “Polar Express” theme, it just seems like train cookies with peppermint wheels should be on the menu. You can, of course, decorate gingerbread via remote videoconference! All you need is a few pre-baked cookies at each location. Gather all of the cousins for a Zoom meeting or a Microsoft Teams meeting. In our family, grandma sends out cookie mix, frosting, sprinkles, and matching paper cups and straws for each of the grandchildren. Then, they gather online for a cookie decorating contest and take turns telling Grandma about their year. It’s a favorite holiday tradition!

If baking and cutting cookies isn’t your idea of fun, there are dozens of gingerbread-making kits on the market. You can decorate ugly sweaters, small villages, Ninja-bread cookies and more. It’s likely that similar kits are already on the shelves at your local supermarket The kits typically include everything you’ll need, from frosting to sprinkles. So easy and so fun!

Pro tip: if you are decorating with very young children, start something simple (flat) like a gingerbread cookie or an ugly sweater cookie. All they want to do is glue on the decorations, and they don’t care if it looks precise and beautiful when you finish. 

If you want to decorate gingerbread houses, assemble those in advance of your Zoom call. There’s nothing more frustrating for a child than waiting for the royal icing to set up, or having a gingerbread house fall apart midway through the decorating process. 

• Glue graham crackers to the outside of a juice box or milk carton if you want a super-easy standup house. 
• For “edible” glue, simply melt granulated sugar in a heavy pan until it turns into a liquid. This will be very hot, so gluing will be an adult job
• If you don’t plan to eat your creation later, just glue pieces together with a glue gun and save all of the frustration!

If you have young children in your household or family, try helping them set up their own Hot Chocolate Shop. Pretend play like this is fun for children who relish the opportunity to mimic adult roles. Kindergarten teachers call it “dramatic play.” The Christmas theme of this cute little shop will give it a new twist. Your children can make up their own menu, take orders, and serve food. If you want things to be even more realistic, provide some play money, an apron for a costume, our downloadable Hot Chocolate Shop signs, and some simple supplies like paper cups and straws or even real cookies kids can “sell” to other family members.

The small bell is an important part of the Polar Express story. The bell is only audible for those who truly believe in all of the Christmas magic. With a supply of small jingle bells and a few miniature plastic cups, you can set up a jingle bell toss game similar to the one featured on the Playground Parkbench Blog. 

Don’t forget to tag us with any photos you take during your playdate. You could win a free Playdatebox!