by Allison, age 13

Do you run out of activities to do with your horse around Christmastime? Look no more! Here are some great tips for horsey holiday fun!

Christmas Parade: Dress up your horse in battery-powered Christmas lights and gallop on down to Main Street! Christmas parades are really fun things to do with your horse. Some towns have a contest for best parade entry–who knows, maybe you and your horse could win it! In my town, battery-powered Christmas lights are the decoration of choice for the horses. Glow sticks woven into the horse’s tail or mane can be very cute too! Jingle bells are lots of fun–let everyone know who’s coming!

Show or Party: Why not have a Christmas horse show or party? Everyone can dress up and play theme games or show off their horse skills. 4H groups and Pony Clubs sometimes sponsor events like these. Look on city bulletin boards or in the newspaper for information about these events. You can start your own party or show, too. It can be fun around the holidays to have a more relaxed show than usual. Maybe more of a talent show type of thing would be fun.

For a party, themes can be fun. You could have a “North Pole” Party and ask your guests (people and horses) to dress up like Santa Claus or elves. A fun game would be to have a time limit or race your friends to deliver wrapped boxes, perhaps with a real present in them, on horseback to “houses” (you could ride around, dropping the boxes in bins on your neighbor’s doorstep or you could just ride around in a ring or field dropping the presents in boxes). The person with the shortest time or the first person done wins! You could later take these presents, if you put something in the boxes, to an organization who could deliver them to people who might not get presents. Just remember–if you do this, make sure the presents won’t break!

A Nativity party could be fun, too! Everyone could dress up as a character from the Nativity scene and put on a Nativity play, complete with horses filling the stable! You could have races to see if you could get to Bethlehem before Mary has her baby, or you could be like the Wise Men and have a scavenger hunt following the star, I mean, clues, to find the stable where Baby Jesus is!

Spend Extra Time With Your Horse: Horses love you spending time with them as much as they love Christmas parties. Spend a few extra minutes grooming them, fuss over them, and slip them an apple every once in a while. Your horse will love you!

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