For most of this year, things have felt dark in the figurative sense. But tonight, the darkness will also loom over us in the literal sense: Today is the Winter Solstice—the shortest day of the year, and therefore also the longest night of the year. Which makes it the perfect night to play some glow games with your kids.
You don’t have to be super crafty to host your First Annual Winter Solstice Glow Games. All you need is a stash of glow sticks or glow bracelets/necklaces, your imagination, and the darkness.
Glow-in-the-dark bowling
How fun would it be to go to one of those late-night glow-in-the-dark events at your local bowling alley? So fun! But you know you can’t do that right now, which is why you should set up your own at-home glowing bowling alley instead. Here’s how:
Get some bottled water.Take the labels off.Insert one glow stick into each bottle.Put the caps back on.Line them up like bowling pins.Grab a ball (a soccer ball, a basketball, whatever you have).Turn off the lights.Bowl.
Glowy ring toss
Use glow necklaces as the rings (or 2-3 glow bracelets hooked together). If you don’t already have a ring toss game, simply find something around the house to toss the rings around. (Hey, one of those water bottles from your bowling set would work nicely.)
Glow necklace hula-hoop
Attach as many glow necklaces as are necessary to make one large hoop, tape or zip-tie it to your regular hula hoop, and get your hula on.
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Glow bracelet Tic-Tac-Toe
Use connected, straightened-out glow necklaces to create the lines that make up the board. Rather than playing with Xs and Os, everyone uses Os (glow bracelets), but each player has their own color. Here’s what it will look like when it’s all set up.
End with a glow bath
Fill up the tub, turn off the lights, and throw a bunch of glow sticks in the water. If your kid loves baths, you are now a hero. If your kid doesn’t love baths, this might be one time you don’t have to wrestle him into the tub.
This story was originally published in December 2018 and was updated on December 21, 2020 to provide current information and to align the content with current Lifehacker style.
