The best holiday activities that teach children about other cultures include cooking traditional dishes from around the world, playing culturally significant games, exploring multicultural storytelling, and participating in hands-on crafts tied to global celebrations. These experiences help kids build genuine curiosity and empathy for people whose traditions differ from their own. The questions below unpack the most effective ways families can bring multicultural learning to life this holiday season.
What types of cultural traditions can families explore during the holidays?
Families can explore a wide range of cultural traditions during the holidays, including food rituals, music and dance, storytelling, religious observances, and seasonal games. The holidays are one of the richest times of year for multicultural learning because so many communities around the world celebrate simultaneously, making it easy to draw meaningful comparisons and connections.
Some of the most accessible entry points for teaching children about other cultures include:
- Food traditions: Cooking or tasting dishes tied to celebrations like Diwali, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year, Las Posadas, or Kwanzaa gives kids a sensory connection to another culture’s values and history.
- Music and dance: Listening to traditional holiday music from different regions, or learning simple dances, introduces children to cultural expression in a joyful, low-pressure way.
- Storytelling and folklore: Every culture has holiday stories that reflect its values. Reading picture books or watching short films rooted in global traditions sparks conversation and imagination.
- Craft and art projects: Making paper lanterns for Lunar New Year, crafting menorahs, or creating Rangoli patterns for Diwali gives children a creative, hands-on way to engage with traditions that may be new to them.
The key is to approach these traditions with genuine curiosity rather than treating them as novelties. Framing each exploration as “here is how another family celebrates and why it matters to them” builds respect alongside knowledge.
How do hands-on activities help children understand different cultures?
Hands-on activities help children understand different cultures because they move learning from abstract ideas into lived experience. When a child rolls dough for a traditional recipe, folds origami, or plays a game rooted in another country’s history, they engage emotionally and physically, which makes the lesson far more memorable than reading alone.
Research in child development consistently shows that experiential learning deepens comprehension and retention. For cultural learning for kids, this matters enormously. A child who has made tamales with a neighbor, or learned to play a traditional game from another country, carries that experience as a reference point for understanding that culture throughout their life.
Hands-on multicultural activities for families also naturally invite conversation. When everyone at the table is trying something new together, questions flow organically. Why do people celebrate this way? What does this symbol mean? Where did this recipe come from? Parents don’t need to have all the answers. The act of discovering together is the point.
Practical hands-on formats that work especially well for kids include:
- Cooking or baking a traditional recipe from a specific culture
- Making traditional decorations or crafts tied to a cultural celebration
- Learning a culturally significant game or sport
- Visiting a cultural museum, festival, or community event
- Watching a performance or film that centers on another culture’s holiday tradition
What games and sports are tied to cultural celebrations around the world?
Many games and sports around the world are directly tied to cultural celebrations and seasonal traditions. From the spinning of a dreidel during Hanukkah to the competitive dragon boat races of the Lunar New Year, play has always been central to how communities mark important moments together.
Here are some examples of games and sports with strong cultural roots that families can explore during the holidays:
- Dreidel (Jewish tradition): This spinning top game played during Hanukkah has roots in Jewish history and teaches children about resilience and celebration.
- Carrom (South Asian tradition): A tabletop game popular across India, Sri Lanka, and neighboring countries, often played at family gatherings during Diwali and Eid celebrations.
- Ping pong and table tennis: Deeply embedded in East Asian culture and celebrated globally, table tennis is one of the most universal social games in the world. It appears at family gatherings, community centers, and cultural events across China, Japan, South Korea, and beyond, making it a natural bridge between cultures.
- Mancala (African tradition): One of the oldest known board games in the world, with origins across Africa and the Middle East. It is a wonderful way to introduce children to the depth of African cultural history.
- Lotería (Mexican tradition): Similar to bingo but using illustrated cards, Lotería is a beloved game played at family gatherings throughout Mexico, especially around the holiday season.
Introducing children to games from other cultures is one of the most effective holiday activities for kids because play is a universal language. A child doesn’t need to speak another language or know a culture’s entire history to enjoy a game rooted in it, and that shared enjoyment becomes a natural starting point for deeper curiosity.
Where can families find multicultural holiday experiences in their city?
Families can find multicultural holiday experiences in their city through cultural museums, community festivals, neighborhood events, and social venues that celebrate diverse traditions. Most major cities host a rich calendar of cultural programming during the holiday season that is open to the public and welcoming to families.
Some of the best places to look include:
- Cultural museums and heritage centers: Many cities have museums dedicated to specific cultural communities, and these institutions often run special holiday programming for families.
- Community festivals and parades: Lunar New Year parades, Diwali festivals, and Kwanzaa celebrations frequently take place in public spaces and are designed to welcome people from all backgrounds.
- Local restaurants and food markets: Visiting a restaurant or market rooted in a specific culture is one of the simplest and most enjoyable ways to introduce children to a new tradition.
- Libraries and community centers: Public libraries often host multicultural storytelling events, craft workshops, and film screenings during the holiday season, many of them free.
- Social entertainment venues: Spaces that bring people together through games and shared activities create natural opportunities for cross-cultural connection, especially when those spaces attract diverse communities.
The most important thing is to look beyond your immediate neighborhood. Cities are full of communities celebrating traditions that may be unfamiliar to your family, and most of those communities are genuinely happy to share their culture with curious visitors.
How can parents keep cultural learning going after the holidays?
Parents can keep cultural learning going after the holidays by weaving multicultural experiences into everyday family life rather than treating them as seasonal events. The holiday season is an excellent starting point, but the most meaningful family cultural experiences are the ones that become ongoing habits rather than one-off activities.
Practical ways to sustain cultural curiosity year-round include:
- Cook one new cultural recipe each month: Let children pick a country and research a dish together. The process of shopping for ingredients and following a recipe is itself a form of cultural learning.
- Build a diverse home library: Seek out children’s books written by authors from a range of cultural backgrounds, not just books about other cultures written from the outside looking in.
- Play games from around the world: Rotating through culturally significant games keeps the learning playful and gives children regular touchpoints with traditions beyond their own.
- Celebrate other cultures’ major holidays: You don’t have to observe every holiday, but acknowledging them, learning a little about them, and perhaps trying a related activity helps children understand that the world’s calendar is far richer than any single tradition.
- Seek out diverse friendships and communities: The most lasting cultural education comes from genuine relationships. Encourage children to make friends across cultural lines and support those friendships actively.
The goal is not to turn every family outing into a lesson. It is to create an environment where curiosity about other people and their traditions feels natural, joyful, and normal. When cultural learning is embedded in fun, it sticks.
How SPIN helps families explore culture through play
At SPIN, we believe that play is one of the most powerful ways to bring people together across backgrounds, ages, and traditions. Our venues are built around exactly that idea.
- Olympic-grade ping pong tables give families a shared activity that connects to a sport celebrated across cultures worldwide, especially in East Asia, Europe, and Latin America
- Large-format social games like Uno, Connect 4, and Jenga create a relaxed, inclusive environment where kids and adults can compete, laugh, and connect
- Family-friendly daytime hours make our venues welcoming for all ages, with no experience required to have a great time
- On-site SPIN pros engage with guests of all skill levels, offering tips and a touch of friendly competition that kids genuinely love
- Private party packages make it easy to celebrate birthdays, cultural milestones, or family gatherings in a vibrant, memorable setting
Whether you’re looking for a fun outing that sparks conversation about the world or a venue for a family celebration, we’re here to make it happen. Reserve your table online today and bring the whole family together for a game that connects cultures everywhere.
