Facing a desperate vista of bored kids and cabin fever? Getting out and about might help you beat the post-Christmas
blues and stay sane until the schools reopen, writes
SHEILA WAYMAN
THE MAIN event is over but there is still nearly a fortnight of Christmas holidays to go before the children return to school. If the weather is bad and you are broke, it could be tough going.
In the run-up to Christmas there are many events for children and an air of anticipation heightens the enjoyment. In contrast, the bleak days of early January can be quite a comedown – although, of course, the pantomime season is still going strong.
The notion that we have to “entertain” our children is one of the scourges of modern parenting and hinders the development of independence. The benefits of “just hanging” and letting otherwise over-scheduled children amuse themselves should not be under-estimated.
However, common sense suggests that it would be good for everybody’s sanity to get out of the house most days. Equally, holidays are an opportunity for making memories by spending time with your children; they delight in the collaboration of their parents in even the simplest things. If you can plan a few activities or outings, the downtime is likely to be much more harmonious. Here are a dozen suggestions of places to go and things to do with children until the schools reopen:
1 New Year festival: Solas, a free family event in the Dubh Linn Gardens of Dublin Castle on December 30th, 4.30pm-6pm, will launch the capital's New Year festival. This light show will feature stilt walkers, musicians and the Dublin Gospel Choir.
Over the three days of the festival (December 30th-January 1st), there will be a host of street performers in the Grafton Street area from noon to 5pm each day and on January 1st there will be circus workshops at Wolfe Tone Park – in front of Collins Barracks – alongside a seasonal funfair.
For a family with teenagers, a concert by the Dublin Gospel Choir in Christ Church Cathedral (8.45pm-11pm, tickets €30), followed by the ringing in of the New Year, could make a memorable end to 2010. See dublinnewyearfestival.com.
2 Free workshops:Special post-Christmas activities for children are yet another reason to visit museums and galleries at this time of year, when the free admission is appreciated more than ever.
Find out about hibernation at a “Bear Necessities” event at the Natural History Museum in Dublin on December 29th and 30th (2pm-4pm, no booking required). Or learn about the mumming tradition with the Armagh Rhymers at Collins Barracks on January 2nd (2.15pm-3.15pm and 3.30pm-4.30pm, first come, first served). For all the information you need about these and other events at each of the four branches of the National Museum, see museum.ie.
The annual family art workshops at the National Gallery on Dublin’s Merrion Square are an institution in themselves – running daily with artist Dan Conroy from today until December 30th, 3pm-4pm. The following week, January 1st to January 7th, there will be supervised creative sessions in the atrium, 3pm-4pm. No booking is required for any of these but bring sketchpad and colours. See nationalgallery.ie.
Family activity packs (suitable for ages five-11) are available at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle on January 8th and 9th, 1pm-4pm. Again, admission is free. See cbl.ie.
3 Planetarium:Treat your children to an outer space experience at the Armagh Planetarium, with its range of mesmerising digital shows suitable for different age groups. They can get to grips with interactive displays in the exhibition area, touch the largest meteorite found in Ireland and explore the outdoor astropark – built as a scale model of the universe – wandering through the solar system, along the Milky Way and beyond.
Pre-booking of shows is essential. Tel: 048 3752 3689 or see armaghplanet.com to choose the show most suitable for your children. Opening hours: 11.30am-5pm this week. Shows start on the hour, noon-4pm. Closed Sunday; next week open 1-5pm, Monday-Friday with one show and 11.30am-5pm Saturday, with five shows.
Show tickets cost £6 (€7) for an adult, £5 (€5.90) under-16s, £20 (€23.50) family (two adults, max three children), and include admission to exhibits and the astropark. If you don't want to go to a show, admission is £2 (€2.30) per person .
4 Winter walks:Go along with explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes' assertion that there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing, and get the family outdoors – sun, rain or snow. Enjoy one of Coillte's forest parks or 150-plus recreational areas around the country (see coillteoutdoors.ie). (See also John G Dwyer's recommendations on page 13.)
Invite friends along and promise hot chocolate to motivate reluctant walkers.
5 Play centres:With a big improvement in free local authority playgrounds in recent years, the merits of paying for your children to play indoors in an artificial centre are questionable. But children love them – and keeping warm and dry can be a big plus for watching parents. Search the options in your locality on one of the children's listings websites (see panel).
One example is Enrg in Rathcoole, Co Dublin, which has play areas suitable for children from 12 months to 12 years of age. Prices for 90 minutes range from €5 for a toddler, to up to €9 for children over two at weekends. For more information and opening hours see enrg.ie or tel: 01 4019033.
HipKidz in Briarhill, Galway is a sports arena offering children (aged five-13) a wide range of activities such as GAA games, basketball, climbing wall, high jump, long jump and even bicycles linked to Playstations.
Staff guide and supervise children so parents can drop them off for an hour or two (€8 per child/€14 for two per hour until January 31st), for a half-day, a day or for a week-long New Year’s camp (January 3rd-7th). See hipkidz.ie, or tel: 091 381653.
6 Visit the Áras:On Saturdays you can walk in the steps of the President at Áras an Uachtaráin, where public tours are run hourly from 10.30am, with the last starting at 3.30pm.
Tours are free, but they can be cancelled at very short notice and there is no pre-booking. So it is a good idea to temper your children’s expectations before you turn up at the Ashtown Visitor Centre in the Phoenix Park looking for tickets – which are allocated on a first come, first served basis. Each tour takes up to 25 people.
Exact opening hours and activities at the visitor centre (reopens on December 31st but is closed again on Saturday, January 1st, tel: 01 6770095) will depend on staff resources over the holiday period. Meanwhile, the President’s neighbours in Dublin Zoo (open daily 9.30am-4pm) have two new arrivals on display – a baby giraffe and a baby hippo. See dublinzoo.ie.
7 Adventure centres: Feeling a tad lethargic after festive excesses? Kick- start your family's new year with a visit to an adventure centre.
Xtreme.ie Adventure Centre at Courtlough in Balbriggan, Co Dublin offers a three-hour family package (suitable for ages seven-plus) which includes aerial trekking, zip line, wall climbing and archery, at €45 per person (€38.25 for under-18s if booked online).
The centre is open from December 29th-January 4th (excluding January 1st), but only for activities booked at least 24 hours in advance; it’s open seven days a week from January 5th. For more information and booking, see xtreme.ie or tel: 01 690 2070.
If you can get at least eight together in a group (children must be aged six or over) a half-day or day of activities can be booked at the Kippure adventure centre in Co Wicklow.
Packages are tailored to your taste for adventure and range from archery and treasure hunts to high ropes (minimum age 14) and monster swings (minimum age 10). See adventurewicklow.com or tel: 01 458 2889.
The Delphi Mountain Resort in Connemara, Co Galway runs half-day (€25 child/€45 adult) and full-day (€45 child/€60 adult) adventure programmes. It will be open up to December 31st but is closed for January. For bookings see delphimountainresort.com or tel: 095 42208.
8 Watch the birdies: You don't even have to leave the house to get the children involved in the garden bird survey which Birdwatch Ireland is running from December to February. Use its online guide to Ireland's 20 most common species to identify what birds are visiting your garden. Then encourage the children to log the results, to help Birdwatch Ireland monitor changes and potential problems among the garden bird population.
The best bird reserves to visit at this time of year include the East Coast Nature Reserve, south of Greystones in Co Wicklow, and the Wexford Wild Fowl Reserve, just north of Wexford town, which has a visitor centre and goose collection. Make sure you bring binoculars. There are illustrated boards at both sites to help you identify the birds. See birdwatchireland.ie for details of survey and reserves.
9 Cinema days:Yes, you can go to your local multiplex to see one of the "holiday" releases for children, such as Gulliver's Travels, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader or the latest Harry Potter film, but you can also have a "cinema day" at home for your children and some of their friends at minimal cost.
Ask them to select one of their own DVDs, choose a rental or borrow one free from the local library and then get them to create an advertising poster and admission tickets, and set up a stand for home-made popcorn, drinks and sweets. There will be queues around the block!
10 The wheel deal: This was the year that Belfast lost its big wheel and Dublin gained one. Getting a bird's eye view of the city from the wheel at the Point Village is something most of us would like to do at least once. It operates 10am-6pm this week and 10am-10pm after January 2nd. Family tickets (two adults, two children) cost €23. See pointvillage.ie for more details or tel: 01 855 9204 to book.
11 Puzzle house:Fancy the physical and mental challenge of cracking the "Boda Borg"? It involves a journey through 47 rooms in a two-storey building with a team of three-to-five people, and is recommended for anyone aged seven years and upwards. Based on a Swedish concept, it is the one big "weather independent" attraction at Lough Key Forest Park, near Boyle, Co Roscommon, which also boasts "Ireland's only tree canopy walk" and an extensive adventure playground.
What you pay depends on what you do, ranging from a €4 car park exit charge if you just walk the trails of the forest park to a €60 family day pass (two adults, three children) if you want to do absolutely everything. Weather permitting, it will be open from today until January 9th, 10am-4pm. See loughkey.ie for more information, or tel: 071 967 3122.
12 Baking:Winter holidays are an ideal opportunity for home-baking – normal time constraints do not apply and the kitchen is usually the warmest room in the house. The attention span of children is short, though, so keep it simple.
Preparation is key, especially with younger children, says Yvonne Rosenkranz of Junior Chef, a children’s cookery school in Blackrock, Co Dublin. And don’t attempt to involve more than four or five children at one time
“Get all your ingredients together and weigh them before calling in the children,” she advises. If you are baking something easy like cookies, first prepare the dough and chill it. Then children can have the satisfaction of rolling and cutting the dough, seeing – and more importantly tasting – the finished product soon afterwards.
Embellish the occasion by converting the kitchen into a cafe – menus must be made and waiters are required.
If you prefer to leave culinary lessons to the experts, Junior Chef is running a Christmas camp from January 4th-7th for children aged four to 13, from 9.30am to 2pm, at a cost of €156. You can also book your child in for just one day, for €39. See juniorchef.ie, or tel: 01 2780382.
Every effort is made to ensure information is correct at time of going to press but please check websites or by phone before travelling.
USEFUL WEBSITES
fundays.ie
mykidstime.ie
ireland4kids.ie
familyfun.ie
heritageireland.ie
