LIFE

Whether you're not able to travel to see your family this year or if you are choosing to celebrate the holidays from your own home to keep everyone safe this year, here are nine ways to connect with far-away family this holiday season.

Send Holiday greeting cards

Let your family know you are thinking about them by sending a real holiday greeting card. Your grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles will be delightfully surprised to open their mailbox and find a handwritten note from you!

Host a social media ugly sweater contest

Challenge your family and friends to post a picture of themselves in their ugliest holiday sweater. You can be the judge of who's sweater is the best- I mean the worst!

Celebrate with a virtual holiday concert

Do you have musical talents to share? Prepare a few arrangements of you and your immediate family performing your *fave* holiday tunes. Then, make a recording and send it to your family members all across the globe.

Host a socially-distanced Secret Santa

It might not be as crazy as the Secret Santa exchange from The Office, but if you are willing to make a few changes to your typical gift exchange you and your family can connect over a safe Secret Santa. Check out the Girls' Life guide to hosting the ultimate socially-distanced Secret Santa.

Watch your favorite holiday movies over Teleparty

Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party) is the best way to watch your fave holiday movies from Netflix, Disney and Hulu with your family living far-away over the internet.  Pick a movie that will get everyone in the holiday spirit, then watch and chat in real-time with everyone.

Use ElfYourself to make your family laugh

With the ElfYourself app, you can put a picture of your head on a dancing elf then share the video with your entire family over email, text or social media. It's sure to bring a smile to their faces.

Pen-pal with your grandparents

Whether you are pen-paling over email, text, or physical notes, a written correspondence with your grandparents is the perfect way to share thoughtful conversations that they will treasure as much as you do. 

Kick the Christmas skit up a notch

Do you and your cousins have a tradition of putting on a Christmas skit or fun holiday show for the fam? Take things to a whole new level by writing a sketch that can be performed over Zoom or recorded in separate shots from wherever you and your "castmates" may be. If SNL can do hilarious sketches from home, then so can you!

Just call and chat

Gen Z kids often feel awkward talking on the phone, but having conversations with your family members over the phone is a great way to catch up and bring joy to both them and you. After a few minutes of convo, it probs won't feel so awkward anyway.

by Emma Rose Eggleston | 12/16/2020