Back in May I made a promise to my daughter that I would bring camp to her since her summer camp had been cancelled. It took some time to plan and prep, but this is what we did:

The week that she was registered to attend had the theme of “Christmas in July,” so while she was sleeping I strung colored lights along the ceiling of her bedroom, hung a gift-filled stocking on her closet door, and sprinkled individually wrapped candies across her furnishings. In the morning, I did rouse her with reveille, but then a Christmas playlist jingled its way into the room. We sang along as she opened her stocking that was filled with gimp and dollar store trinkets.

She was so excited to get the day started, and filled with candy, so we skipped breakfast and went straight into her first activity: baking. She said brownies and cupcakes were always offered at camp as desserts, so she helped me make both.

Next came one of my favorite camp activities: leather working. We moistened leather strap bracelets, stamped them with designs, then stained and sheened them.

Considering the theme, I wanted to include a Christmas craft, so we made waterless snow globes. I bought my first glue gun for this craft, so I feel like a full fledged member of the crafting world now. We glued small foam squares into the screw-on lids of glass jars to serve as pedestals for the figurines. Then we glued small snow-covered evergreens and snowmen to the foam. (The remaining trees will be perfect for the train set that we plan to build together!) We poured fake snow and Christmas colored glitter into the jars, and then inverted the lids, screwed them on, shook them up, and voilà!

Chinese food was one of her favorite lunches from camp, so we ordered carry-out before continuing on with our craft activities. To the tune of the Addam’s Family theme song we prayed:

“We’ve filled our bowls and dishes – with food that is delicious – you’ve granted all our wishes – God thank you very much!”

After lunch we had a siesta, which was a part of my summer camp experience. Campers would write letters home or read while the counselors geared up for the evening programs. As mom/counselor, I just needed to rest my eyes for a bit.

The next craft was a continuation of something we had started during stay-at-home orders. As I’d mentioned in my post titled “Expanding Time,” my daughter and I went on many springtime strolls and had plenty of time to stop and smell the flowers. We collected and pressed small blossoms that we spotted along the way. I did the same with petals from the Mother’s Day carnations she gifted me. Our craft was to arrange the pressings into small frames. We are both very happy with the results, and they help to shine a light of gratitude on our memories of this pandemic.

Next came wood burning. I bought small pieces of wood for a dollar from Michael’s that are very easy to burn designs into.

Our final activity was making friendship bracelets with embroidery thread and key chains with gimp while watching Elf.

Dinner was unique, to say the least. She had described a spaghetti burrito that I was not so sure about, but she devoured what we made! “ABCDEFG – Thank you God for feeding me!” was the blessing.

I have more planned, but some of the activities require the participation of my friend’s children. We were going to run the games at our annual lake trip, but it was hard to compete with the activities that were already available to us: paddle boarding, kayaking, swimming, and floating. We’ve decided to host a day of camp one weekend soon, which I’ll be sure to post as Part 3.

Even though we didn’t play the games at the lake, we were still able to add in the sweetness of S’mores around a campfire and spend some time stargazing. No meteor showers, but we did see a shooting star and were able to locate the comet Neowise! It’s not the best photo, but it’s good enough.

So it wasn’t a week away with a cabin full of bunk mates, but she seems to be a happy camper, nonetheless.

What activities would you plan for a camp-at-home experience?