Trying to beat the Winter Blahs

It’s that chunk of time after dinner and before bed. Too tired to do a lot of thinking and your body wants to relax. I don’t feel like going outside to take a walk with temperatures in the single digits. What do you do to fill the time?

I don’t like watching tv every night whether it’s Netflix, Hulu or cable, but it was something easy, relaxing, and bonding to do with my husband – something we shared and I found myself looking forward to it, despite my beliefs about watching too much tv wastes time you could be doing something more fulfilling or productive.

Here are some ideas to try…

Try a Board Game

Board games just never inspired my husband and we decided it was the type of games we had. There’s a game store half a hour from home. I hope to try out some board games with him before buying to see if he’d be interested. Ideally I’d like to rent a board game that I can pick up and bring home and return to the store since my husband and I have different hours and driving a half an hour to play games doesn’t seem very appealing unless it’s a special occasion. Plus now we have a little one and that makes it even more interesting to manage. Gameboardgeek has a lot of forums and good ideas of board games. Here are some lists to get you started:

If you have kids this has some good ideas for ideas after little ones are in bed and you’re tired.

If you are a couple looking for 2 player games I like how these lists comment on the wife and husband’s take on the game so you can see if it would fit your tastes. List 1. List 2.

And of course the ultimate list of other other lists people created if you really want to dive deep into the best two player games.

Try a Date Night

Date night searches often had ideas that didn’t work in the winter or were unavailable in our area. Then I came across at home date nights at the Dating Divas, which involved making an every day activity like dinner or a movie or tv show more interesting. These are my favorites that I’m looking forward to trying and they’re free. They even came up an article with ideas specifically for beating boredom.

Spouse Scattergories: A fun game I enjoyed growing up with and now I can have fun with inside jokes for example one reads: ‘A word to describe my spouse’s cooking.’ I can see us having fun with this.

Chocolate Tasting: My husband and I love chocolate so I could see this being a good winter or special occasion idea. Can’t beat an activity that gives you an excuse to try chocolate. I was thinking of tweaking the idea so you’re blind folded and have to rate and guess the chocolate type.

Football Tailgate Date: I like to interact with sports on tv and on the dating diva site you can make predictions and do certain actions based on the results. Won the toss? You get a kiss. Your teams scored? Get a back rub, etc. Sounds like fun to me.

Super Market Sweep: I loved this show as a kid. Now I like the idea of shopping for my spouse and it’s a race. Takes grocery shopping to a whole ‘nother level. You could also cook in bulk with your spouse on this date.

This would be a good group date but you can do it as a couple too. Improv anyone? Try Who’s Line is it Anyway date. Other group date ideas are Couples Min it to Win it and Battle of the Sexes.

Try a hobby together or work on your individual hobbies together.

Maybe we could do a hobby like crafting or scrapbooking and my husband could work on his sports card collection as individual endeavors and we could talk to each other and learn about the other person’s hobby. Sometimes I find just having his presence while I’m doing an activity soothing.

We could also tackle a new learning experience or hobby together. We both want to brush up on our French but is that too much work for an evening? Is there a fun way of doing it? Maybe for a ½ hour? This website looks like a great place to get ideas. More here and here.

Now that we have an infant most of our plans would need to be at home, which is what we tended to do even before the baby. There’s not much to do in our town.

If you’re in the same boat as me here’s my plan of attack and I hope it helps you too:

Have a go-to list for when you’re bored
Plan and prepare the activity or you’ll find it’s easier to just sit and watch tv. Once the beautiful weather arrives yard work, afternoon/evening walks, hikes, day trips all seem more doable. Still planning is essential for us…. You sit on the couch and say I’m bored I’m tired of watching tv – what else is there to do? I don’t know. Spur of the moment doesn’t work for a play or music venue. Of course if you lived in the city this would be a problem as well but it’s more likely you’d be able to find something to do that was free and at a time that would work spur of the moment because there’s so much more available.
Look at the local newspaper or online source for your town and nearby towns for upcoming events you both might be interested in so you can plan your evenings around it and have something different to look forward to.
If you have a local school or university you can catch a game for some local entertainment.
Find a place to volunteer if you have the time.
Organize a night with friends to play games, cook, learn a skill/task together.
Read a book with your partner and discuss.]
Take a seasonal activity and make it special by only doing it once a year or making it different: like drinking hot chocolate and making gingerbread houses or baking a certain type of cookie once a year. Having fun sometimes is about doing something different from the ordinary, which can take work and creativity.
If these don’t pan out you can always connect with the tv shows you watch by predicting and discussing characters.

I really like all the ideas on hobbies for couples and hope some of the ideas will work for my husband and I and hope they can for you too.

Here are some more links of ideas.

Date nights at home list

More Date nights at home ideas

101 Things to Do with Husband instead of Watching TV

Creative and fun ideas like do a play

Planning dates for the year ideas: idea 1 idea 2 sports themed

What do you to beat the winter blahs?

May life bring you lots of new joyous memories.