Family Quality Time at Christmas

The best way to spend family quality time at Christmas is to do different outdoor experiences together. There are so many opportunities to have fun and try something new plus the best part is that it’s good for your mental and physical health as well. One of the most fun activities is to go tubing at Sunridge. You go down and they pull you back up! Skating is great as well to hang out together while listening to Christmas music. If you’re into skiing, both cross-country skiing and downhill skiing are nice ways to spend time together. If you don’t want to pay for tubing, you can also go tobogganing, free of any cost. A simple walk in the neighbourhood during the day or going for a walk to see the Christmas lights at night are part of the simple pleasures in life.

Sunridge Tubing

The hill is fairly steep, you’ll likely pick up a lot of speed as you go down for a fun ride! Hay will stop you once you reach the bottom of the hill. Tubing costs $20 for a specific two-hour time slot, starting at noon. Book online in advance here. You can go down and get pulled back up as many times as you like. Just note that you’ll need to account for lineup time! It’s the exercise-free way of tobogganing at this location, which allows you to focus on tubing down the hill instead of hiking back up with your tube.

Family Quality Time at Christmas

Children must be seven years old and at least four feet tall to go tubing. You’ll have the choice to go down together while you hold on to another family member’s or partner’s tube or go individually. Someone can spin you as you go down. I’ve never asked for a spin as I figured that would be a good way to get sick! You’ll need to sign a liability form saying they aren’t responsible if you get hurt.

Tips

Tip #1: Helmets are strongly recommended in the tube park but not mandatory. I’ve gone with friends who have flipped and hurt themselves. It’s a personal preference but could prevent you from getting hurt.

Tip #2: Prepaid bookings are non-refundable unless the weather is terrible. Be sure to check the temperature before heading out, the windchill will make it very cold tubing down the hill.

Tip #3: Make sure to wear snow pants as your butt will get cold with the snow that likely makes it into your tube.

This is one of my favourite activities that I love to do throughout the winter. I highly recommend doing this activity with your family or partner for an afternoon of fun.

Family Skating

Skating at Bowness Park is one of Alberta’s 5 Awesome Outdoor Skating Rinks. This fantastic place to skate offers Christmas music while you exercise. Make sure to bring your MEC seat cushion to sit on to keep your butt warm while you drink hot chocolate and eat homemade Christmas desserts when you take a break by the crackling fire outside. They typically have a lot of parking during the winter. Times for skating are from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. It’s possible to rent skates from the University of Calgary Outdoor Centre if you don’t have your own. The skating rink is usually clear unless it has snowed recently. They have a large area for skating with additional pathways that are sometimes open under the bridges. Further to the west a creek pathway is available to take a tranquil skate away from the crowd of skaters.

Tip: The pathways tend to be bumpy and uneven. Keep that in mind if you head that way. It could be tricky for beginners to keep their balance but a nice escape to see a different landscape and enjoy the calmness of nature. You won’t be able to hear the music from this area; the silence is nice. There aren’t any lights in this location, it can be hard to see in the dark.

Victoria Park in Edmonton has pathways lit up with a variety of colours, allowing you to venture there throughout the day. They also play Christmas music in the big oval.

It’s doesn’t matter where you go. Choose a location that works for you depending on where you live and enjoy family quality time at Christmas.

Cross-Country Skiing

I love cross-country skiing! There are so many trails to take in Alberta that provide endless kilometres for a ski day. Cooking Lake-Blackfoot offers one hundred and seventy kilometres of skiing. Strathcona Wilderness Centre is also a great place to ski that is always groomed and they do their best to keep awesome conditions for classic and skate skiing. Chickakoo also offers some good skiing to the west of the city of Edmonton. Peter Lougheed Provincial Park close to Canmore has awesome track set trails to explore through the mountains, as well as Bragg Creek if you live close to Calgary. Lake Louise and the Banff area also provide skiing opportunities.

Trail Difficulty

The trails regardless of where you go offer a variety of difficulty marked by green, blue and black trail signs.

• Green: mostly flat and easy
• Blue: offers more uphill and downhill
• Black: steeper uphill and downhills that can be narrow as well

My mom and I prefer the steeper downhills that tend to offer more fun for expert cross-country skiers like ourselves.

Smiles Outside

It’s an awesome workout and always feels wonderful to be outside! The views from the mountains are beautiful. Gray whiskey jacks also like to come by to see if you will share your snack. Cooking Lake-Blackfoot has warm-up shelters often featuring fires so that you can sit and eat your lunch or warm up for a few minutes and take a break. When it’s cold outside, this is a nice place to hang out. While cross-country skiing, you might get the chance to see a porcupine sitting up in a tree if you’re lucky.

Downhill Skiing

Kris and I love to downhill ski as well. We were at Marmot’s ski hill close to Jasper in the picture above. We alternate between skiing on easier runs together and going on parallel runs that offer Kris more difficultly allowing us to meet up at the end. This works out well to spend time together but also have fun going on the runs we enjoy. This hill is easier than Lake Louise and caters to families. The black runs at Marmot are about the same level of steepness as the blue runs at Lake Louise.

If you’re looking for the best downhill ski day in Lake Louise, I offer some tips to have an awesome day. The runs at Lake Louise are steeper and can get icy if the sun is shining on them all day.

Tip: At Lake Louise, spend time on Larch Mountain. It tends to be less busy and icy and offers doable blue runs for moderate skiers.

Downhill Ski Sunshine or Lake Louise? These two ski hills are close to each other and it’s often a battle between friends to figure out where to go skiing. Sunshine gets a lot of snow high in the mountains but the high winds make it scarier. I find that it makes it harder to enjoy the skiing. Read the post to figure out where you think you’d enjoy spending family quality time at Christmas.

Tobogganing

Focus on what matters includes family quality time at Christmas sledding with my parents in Calgary and being kids at heart for the fun of it over the holiday break! We were tobogganing on a hill that runs into Fish Creek Park. It was cold and did not provide a lot of snow but it was fun anyway! Conveniently, we could walk from my parent’s place and it didn’t require us having to drive with our toboggan in our vehicle. As you can see from the first picture, we were able to get a run full of snow to sled down. The second picture shows my dad trying his own way down and getting stuck in the bushes and grass. It didn’t quite work out.

For added fun, we hooked our arms around each other’s feet and attached the sled to the tube to make it into a train. That created a lot of laughs. It’s a cheap activity once you own the toboggan and with a hill so close to us, it was fun to experience once again, like we did when we were children. I really enjoyed it and made me want to include it as a regular activity that Kris and I partake in throughout the winter.

Walk in Fish Creek Park

My love for the outdoors includes going walking on Christmas day with my family when it’s -30°C. That’s what we consider fun! Our hair turned white with the chilly temperatures. Kris, not used to going outside in these temperatures, was a bit more bundled up with his baklava on his face. He got in the Christmas spirit with his penguin hat. We were only outside for about half an hour to forty-five minutes in Fish Creek Park but it was refreshing to get outside and get some fresh air. Fish Creek Park offers many different small loops to take on a day like that day, which is perfect to get a bit of exercise. Other people were enjoying the outdoors as well.

Tip #1: With the appropriate clothing, dressed for the weather, you can keep warm.

Tip #2: A small walk can make you feel really fantastic in the fresh air. I suggest considering it for the next time you’re together as a family even though it might be cold.

Christmas Light Walk in the Neighbourhood

Walking around your neighbourhood to see the Christmas lights is good exercise and an excellent way to spend family quality time at Christmas. You can visit Candy Cane Lane or other events that are similar in your city. 6 Fun Edmonton Events at Christmas features a variety of events to see Christmas lights throughout the city.

You can choose to pay to see lights or go for a free walk around your neighbourhood. My family and I like to spend our evenings walking around our community. A thirty-minute walk feels good away from a screen and makes it fun to comment and see what different families have set up outside. Some go all out with a blow-up Santa and a snowman and others have very colourful lights. It definitely brightens up the city. Regardless of how houses and lawns are decorated, it’s nice to look at them and helps create conversations with my family or Kris.

Final Thoughts

Family quality time at Christmas includes a variety of events to do together. Tobogganing, cross-country skiing, skating and walking are awesome free activities for families. Tubing and downhill skiing are the most costly but can be enjoyed just as much, if you can afford them. Heading to Marmot, Lake Louise or Sunshine will definitely incur the largest cost; plan accordingly. Some options are close to home and others are a bit further away but they all provide opportunities to experience nature. There are a lot of different possibilities that allow you to focus on your interests as a family. Whatever you end up doing, make the best of it while enjoying each other’s conversations and company. Maybe, you’ll get to try out a new activity that you’ve had on your bucket list for a while but haven’t had a chance to do until now. For more Edmonton fun day trips, check them out here.