As we embrace Spring and turn our calendars to April, it strikes me that we’ve already finished the first quarter of 2021. In some ways, 2020 brought such cataclysmic changes, it felt longer than a year. Its impact is still reverberating in every aspect of our family life. So in the final part of this series, I’m sharing the positive changes we made in 2020, that we continue to love in 2021.
5 more 2020 things we LOVE in 2021
12. Pizza and Sussed
You may have seen our cosy winter ideas post where we talked about our lockdown Friday night routine. For a very reasonable price, Dominos supplies us with two large pizzas, potato wedges, hot chocolate chip cookies and 2 litres of diet coke. We supply the entertainment.
Sussed is a game where players ask multiple choice questions about themselves, and everyone has to try and guess what their answers might be. Sometimes the questions are so silly and obscure! Which makes for laughs and groans in equal measure. Paired with pizza delivery, it makes for a lively, chatty family games night, that I am happy stayed with us in 2021.
13. Beach holiday with friends
We may not have been able to go abroad last summer, but we did the next best thing. We joined another family and rented a chalet in Camber Sands, a beautiful seaside resort in Sussex.
This was a change to holidays for us because we normally go on away on our own, and it’s usually to somewhere much further afield. Newquay, Devon, and Isle of Wight are our favourite destinations. But Camber Sands was a delight, and we were helped by stunning weather. The sand was white and soft, the sea was blue and fairly warm. Nearby we bought fish and chips. And best of all, we discovered bubble waffles! Throw in a brilliant time with our friends, and it was a holiday we definitely want to do again this year.
14. Subscription to The Week Junior
Every year I set myself a parenting goal, and in 2020 I decided on investing in enrichment. Inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project, where she has a chapter on ‘buy happiness,’ I wanted to spend money on things that enhanced the experiences of our children. Yeah, that sounds really poncey, doesn’t it! What I mean is, I wanted to buy things for them with purpose, that they could enjoy and also learn from. We were not going anywhere new in lockdown, social interactions were limited, and I wanted to make the most of this quiet time we had. Two things we invested in: rental bikes and The Week Junior.
The Week Junior is a children’s newspaper that is delivered every week, chock full of interesting articles, amazing photographs, games, interviews and even a poll. Although I bought it for the kids, my husband and I read it as well. It’s far more positive and uplifting than our own news feeds! I can’t imagine not having it for years to come.
15. Home-baking
I am no Martha Stuart. Before 2020, I generally made cake from a box and picked up muffins from the store. But were you even in lockdown if you didn’t make banana bread? After the flour shortage was sorted, we tried all kinds of baking recipes. Blueberry muffins, Starbucks pumpkin loaf and chocolate fudge cake are our favourites. And out of that baking came our very own recipe for oaty apple and blueberry pancakes, which we now make every Sunday. It’s delicious and definitely one of the 2020 things we love in 2021.
16. Disney+ / Disneyland Paris / Disneyland California? Tokyo?
In January of 2020 BC (Before Covid), we had a magical trip to Disneyland Paris. We had planned to return there in the Spring, but of course, Corona yada yada yada happened. So, for the rest of 2020, we made Disney at home.
For my birthday last April, we did a whole day of it. From Disney snacks, to virtual Disney rides, to watching a Disney movie, playing a Disney video game, to even dressing up in a Disney costume to do a Disney online quiz. It was such a laugh and a really special way to spend a lockdown birthday, which could have otherwise been quite depressing.
In late March 2020, we also signed up for Disney+. Originally, I thought it would be an extension of Disney Life, which we had before, that we mainly used to re-watch all the classic Disney films (I can’t decide if Hercules, Moana or Tangled is my favourite?).
But Disney+ is a whole new thing! We are hooked on Mandalorian, the Star Wars spin-off series which catapulted Baby Yoda to stratospheric heights. We have also watched almost the entire
Marvel series, The Clone War saga, and Hamilton, the musical. My husband and I had seen Hamilton in the West End the year before, but the boys had only ever heard the soundtrack before. (Heard? More like memorised every lyric!) It was a real treat to be able to watch it with them at home, something I don’t think we’d ever have afforded to do otherwise.
It was a no-brainer to renew Disney+ for another year.
So where to next?
I hope we will be able to make it to Disneyland Paris in 2021. We are keeping an eye on travel news constantly. We also would like to visit our family in California as soon as flights resume. And when we do that, we would love to go to Disneyland California. On top of all that, we’ve had a 5-year plan in place to go to Tokyo Disney in 2022. With the pandemic playing havoc with our plans, that might be pushed back to 2023, so we’ll have to see.
All of that to say, we’re a Disney mad family, and 2021 is all about making plans for what we’re going to do when we’re allowed to do it. Having something amazing to look forward to is almost as much fun as actually doing it.
And that’s it for 16 crazy things the pandemic forced us to do in 2020, that we still love in 2021.
I hope you’ve also found some positive changes to your family life. Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear about it.
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