Here are 35 winter activities to help you make the most of cold days, from cozy things to do at home to fun little adventures worth leaving your blanket for.
I am a winter person through and through.
I love the clothes, the cold air, the warm food, the early evenings, the blankets, and even the hot chocolate cravings.
But I also think winter is the one season that can pass by very quickly if you don’t make an effort to live it.
Now, I know that universally, winter isn’t that well-liked (even though I have never been one to share the sentiment).
But whether you hate this season or love it, it’s still a part of your life. It makes up about two to three months of the year, and that is a long time to spend sulking and wishing the present away.
So, in this post, I am sharing 35 winter activities with you that will help you enjoy this season and make sure it doesn’t just pass you by.
You’ll find a good mix of cold outdoor adventures, cozy indoor ideas, and some whimsical things that you can make into your own winter traditions.
Here you go!
35 Cozy And Fun Winter Activities
1. Knit yourself a long scarf
I am talking about one of those long and chunky scarves that wraps around you multiple times and makes you look like a character who lives in a tiny English village.
If you’ve never knitted before, this is actually a pretty forgiving first project because it’s like making one long rectangle.
Pick yarn in a color you’ll want to wear all winter, learn the basic stitch, and keep the project beside your couch so you can work on it while watching TV.
By the end of winter, you’ll either have a beautiful handmade scarf or a weird handmade scarf that you love purely because you made it.
Both outcomes are good!
2. Go ice skating
Ice skating is one of those winter activities that feels magical even when you’re terrible at it, which is why it shouldn’t be skipped.
Find an ice rink near you, put on your warmest clothes, and go with someone who won’t judge you for clinging to the side during your first lap.
Once you get the hang of it, skating around with cold cheeks and music playing in the background is ridiculously fun.
And if you never get the hang of it? You still went ice skating in winter, laughed a lot, and probably earned yourself a hot chocolate afterward!
3. Start a long fantasy book series
Winter is the perfect time to disappear into another world for a few weeks.
So, don’t pick a book you’ll finish in two days.
Start a proper fantasy series with maps, kingdoms, magic systems, characters you’ll become emotionally attached to, and preferably enough books to keep you occupied until spring.
Make reading the series part of your winter routine.
Read a chapter with your morning coffee, take it to bed early, and spend your free afternoons curled up with it.
The cold weather will make reading about enchanted forests and fictional kingdoms ten times better!
4. Take a trip to a charming little town
Winter is such a good season for slow trips where you’re not trying to see twelve attractions before lunch.
So, if you can manage one winter getaway, skip the giant itinerary and go somewhere small and charming.
Find a town with old streets, cute cafés, little shops, mountain views, pretty architecture, or simply the kind of place where walking around is the activity.
Pack your sweaters, take the train if you can, eat warm food, wander without rushing, and come back with too many pictures.
5. Have a bonfire night
If you have a safe place where fires are permitted, gather a few people for a proper bonfire evening.
Bring blankets, wear layers, make hot drinks, and sit around the fire until everybody’s clothes smell vaguely smoky.
You can roast marshmallows, play music, tell stories, and talk while staring into the fire. Dancing and singing are most welcome.
6. Make cinnamon rolls
There are certain foods that simply understand winter, and warm cinnamon rolls are one of them.
Pick a cold morning when you have nowhere to be and make them properly from scratch.
Let the dough rise, make the cinnamon filling, roll everything up, and wait while your kitchen starts smelling unfairly good.
Then enjoy a warm roll with coffee or tea.
This is a creative, yummy, and slow winter activity all rolled into one!
7. Build a blanket fort and sleep in it
I firmly believe blanket forts should not have an age limit. As adults, we perhaps need the joy and comfort of blanket forts even more.
Take over your living room one winter evening with chairs, blankets, cushions, fairy lights, and loads of pillows.
Bring your snacks inside the blanket fort, and watch movies, read, play games, and let yourself fall asleep in it.
Your inner child will be so happy with this one.
8. Visit a winter market
If there’s a winter market or seasonal fair happening near you, please make an outing of it.
Spend your afternoon wandering between stalls selling handmade goodies, warm food, winter accessories, and all kinds of things you don’t need but want.
Get yourself something hot to drink, browse the decorations, and pick up a souvenir to remember the day by.
Winter markets are one of those places where you can spend hours doing nothing in particular and still come home feeling like you’ve had the loveliest day.
9. Make a giant pot of soup
I am usually very mindful of the food quantity while cooking.
But I have to admit, cooking in a big container is way more relaxing. There’s something very cottagecore about it.
This season, make enough soup to feed a small village.
Pick a new recipe, put on music, chop everything up, and let the soup simmer while you spend the rest of the afternoon at home.
You can have a fresh bowl with warm bread for dinner that night, and freeze the rest for future winter nights.
Few things make you feel more prepared for winter than knowing there is homemade soup waiting somewhere in the freezer.
10. Go on a foggy morning walk
If winter where you live brings fog, take advantage of it at least once.
Wake up early, put on a sweater and coat, make yourself something warm to carry, and head outside while everything looks misty and mysterious.
Even streets you’ve walked down a hundred times look different in thick winter fog.
You can take the quieter route, notice the bare trees and lights through the mist, and enjoy being outside before the day properly starts.
Once you’re back home, you can make a hot breakfast. Perfect winter morning!
10. Learn to make really good hot chocolate
Anyone can stir powdered chocolate vaguely into hot water.
But if you really want to enjoy your hot chocolate in winter, then find a proper recipe and perfect it this season.
Try different chocolate, add cinnamon or vanilla, experiment with how thick you like it, and figure out your ideal toppings.
Once you’ve found the one, write the recipe down somewhere.
Make it for yourself on cold nights and serve it whenever somebody comes over. The effort will be fun and totally worth it.
11. Have a winter puzzle going all month
Buy a giant puzzle — preferably something snowy, magical, cottage-y, or otherwise appropriately cozy — and give it a permanent corner of your house for a few weeks.
Work on it for ten minutes while your coffee is brewing, add a few pieces after dinner, and sit down with it when you want something to do without looking at another screen.
Throughout the winter, the puzzle will feel like a member of your household, and a perfect winter hobby, too.
12. Make s’mores over a fire
If you’re having a bonfire, fireplace night, or any other safe outdoor fire situation this winter, you have to make s’mores.
Get marshmallows, chocolate, and biscuits or graham crackers and make proper gooey s’mores.
They’ll be messy, I know. But the slippery and overburnt marshmallows are all part of this yummy winter activity.
13. Take a winter train ride
Train rides are not just a means of transport. They are an activity in themselves, and they fit so well into winter.
Pick a destination you can reach by train, and make the journey part of your winter day out.
Bring a book, buy snacks for the ride, get a window seat if you can, and watch everything pass by while you’re warm inside.
It feels so cozy to travel by train when it’s cold outside. An airplane could never give me this energy.
14. Make your own candles
If you’re going to burn candles during winter anyway, you might as well spend some time learning how to make them.
Get a beginner candle-making kit or gather the basic supplies, choose a scent that feels like winter, and make a few candles for your room.
You could do vanilla, coffee, pine, orange, or cinnamon.
You can keep one of the candles and give the others away. They will make for superb winter gifts.
15. Spend a snowy day outside
If you live somewhere that gets snow (lucky you), please don’t let every snowy day pass while you’re watching it through the window.
Go outside, and do something fun!
Build a snowman, make snow angels, have a snowball fight, take pictures, and catch snowflakes like a kid.
Come home when your fingers are freezing, change into dry clothes, and make something hot.
Those of us who don’t get snow regularly will be living through you, so make it count!
16. Make dried orange garlands
This is such a pretty little winter craft, especially if you like natural decorations (which I certainly do).
You will need to slice oranges thinly, dry them in the oven, and string them together.
You can also add cinnamon sticks, wooden beads, and some greenery if you want to make it fancier.
Hang your garlands in the kitchen, mantel, bookshelf, and window.
It will make you feel as if you’ve moved into a cottage and developed several wholesome hobbies.
17. Bake fresh bread
Winter is the one season when waiting around for dough to rise feels like a fine afternoon plan.
So, if you don’t already bake bread, then just make a simple loaf from scratch.
There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube that will make sure you don’t mess up your first bread.
Cut into the bread while it’s still warm, add butter, and eat it with soup.
This is the sort of activity that will make being stuck inside in winter feel like the plan rather than a limitation.
18. Go stargazing on a clear winter night
Yes, it will be cold. That is why you’re going to dress like you’re preparing for an expedition, and then have an enchanting night outdoors.
Pick a clear night, head somewhere away from bright lights if possible, bring blankets and a thermos of something hot, and spend an hour looking at the sky.
Use a stargazing app if you want to identify constellations and planets.
But if you just wanna lie and observe the stars without any knowledge, that’s fine too. You will be connecting with the universe both ways.
19. Eat oranges in the sun
This is such a healthy, cozy, and vitamin-rich winter activity. You can do it as many times as you like.
Whenever the sun is out, sit by the window or any spot in your house that gets sunshine, and enjoy peeling and eating oranges.
Since your hands will be sticky, you’ll need to sit quietly without multitasking, and let the sunlight be your companion.
Mindfulness, warmth, and wellness — all in one!
20. Make a winter scrapbook
If you like the idea of keeping little pieces of your winter instead of letting every memory just exist in your phone, then make a winter scrapbook.
Print some pictures, save tickets and receipts from fun days, press little notes inside, add café napkins, wrappers, drawings, book quotes, and postcards.
Keep adding to your scrapbook all winter.
By the end, you’ll have a wonderful record of what your life actually looked and felt like this season.
21. Have a fondue night
There are few foods more suited to winter than a giant pot of something melted sitting in the middle of a table.
You can do cheese fondue with bread, potatoes, and vegetables.
Or if your sweet tooth is active, then go directly to chocolate and dip fruit, marshmallows, cookies, and cake into it.
I’d strongly suggest inviting a couple of friends for this. It’s better when there are people sitting around the table with cheese and food in between.
Communal, cozy, and chaotic in the best way.
22. Learn to crochet a beanie
If the giant scarf goes well for you and you’d like to try some more winter craft, then try crocheting a beanie.
Choose a chunky yarn and a simple beginner pattern so you can actually finish it before winter ends.
This is exactly the kind of hobby I love for cold evenings because your hands are busy while you watch TV or listen to something.
And then you get to wear the thing you made.
Even if it turns out too large and makes you look like a garden gnome, you’d have made a hat!
23. Visit a snowy place
If snow doesn’t come to you, perhaps you go to the snow?
Plan a day trip or short winter getaway where you have a good chance of seeing proper snow.
Wear the right number of layers required, walk around, take loads of aesthetic pictures, drink something hot, and let yourself be super excited.
You don’t need to ski or book some elaborate resort holiday either.
The sole purpose of your trip can be just to witness snow and spend time in it. That would make the trip even more intentional and special.
24. Roast chestnuts or peanuts
If you associate winter with hot roasted snacks, then definitely do this.
Roast chestnuts if they’re easy to find where you live, or go for peanuts, corn, sweet potatoes, or any street-style snack.
Eat them while they’re hot, preferably while sitting outside in the winter sun or bundled up on a cold evening.
Because every seasonal activity needs to be a lengthy production.
Sometimes winter is simply cold hands wrapped around something warm to eat.
25. Build a gingerbread house
I don’t care if Christmas has already passed when you are reading this. Gingerbread architecture deserves a longer season.
Buy a kit or make the pieces yourself, put on a movie, and spend an afternoon trying to construct a tiny edible house without the roof sliding off.
Decorate it with icing, candies, and powdered sugar snow.
It can be beautiful, but it can also look like the gingerbread people are experiencing a housing crisis.
Either way, you’ll have loads of fun.
26. Have a cozy winter reading day
I am not just talking about having an hour of reading before bed. Have a whole reading day.
Choose a weekend when you don’t have plans, pick a book, and give yourself permission to spend several hours reading it.
Have a nice breakfast, change reading spots throughout the day, take tea breaks, and maybe go for a short walk between chapters.
If you’re reading a fantasy series, this is even better because you can disappear into that world for long enough to forget your own exists.
27. Make your own chunky blanket
This is for the ambitious winter crafters.
Try hand-knitting one of those giant chunky blankets you see all over cozy winter pictures.
The yarn itself is huge, so you don’t need traditional knitting needles, and there are beginner tutorials that show you how to loop everything by hand.
Imagine starting winter with a pile of yarn and ending it curled up under a blanket you made yourself.
It will be so satisfying, right?
28. Go on a winter cabin getaway
If you can manage a night or two away, find a little cabin, cottage, mountain stay, or a stay surrounded by nature.
The dream setup is cold weather outside, a warm room inside, big windows, books, coffee, and blankets.
You can cook simple meals, go for walks during the day, play cards at night, and let yourself be unreachable for a day or two.
Winter is made for such trips where doing little is the whole point. Make sure you give yourself at least one of these.
29. Have a picnic on a sunny day
On a rare day off when the sun is out, plan a solo picnic or an outing in the sun with your friends.
Make everything at home, pack coffee or tea, and enjoy sunbathing while eating, reading, and listening to the soothing sounds of nature.
Sunny days are fewer and farther between in winter, and that means we have to seize every sunny day that we can. And a picnic is the best activity for this.
30. Make homemade marshmallows
I had no idea that making marshmallows at home is even a thing, but apparently, it is.
This naturally means we have to try it too.
Make a big batch of marshmallows, cut them into big imperfect squares, dust them properly, and use them in your hot chocolate over the next few days.
You can even dip some in chocolate or give a bag to someone.
Will store-bought marshmallows have been easier? Obviously. But that wouldn’t be an exciting activity now, would it?
32. Have a winter baking day
If you find yourself home on an afternoon with nothing to do, then turn your kitchen into a little winter bakery.
Your job is to make as many winter baked goods as you can.
You could make cinnamon rolls, gingerbread cookies, apple crumble, chocolate muffins, and a warm loaf of banana bread.
Put on a cozy playlist, wear your favorite sweater, and take your sweet time with the whole process.
And while everything is baking, make yourself a hot drink and enjoy the lovely smells wafting through your house.
You can even pack some of your treats into boxes and give them to friends or neighbors.
Nothing says winter love quite like showing up at someone’s door with homemade cookies.
33. Have a winter movie marathon
I try creating winter blog posts without mentioning movie marathons, but it’s just not possible. So, here we are again.
On a freezing winter day when going outside sounds like a horrible idea, make a list of movies that give you winter feels.
You might add Little Women, The Holiday, Harry Potter, or good old Christmas movies.
Bring out the blankets, make popcorn, put on your coziest pajamas, and prepare a snack station so you don’t have to keep getting up.
You could even invite your friends over and have everyone bring their favorite winter movie and a snack to share.
And then just spend hours watching winter-themed movies and basking in the fact that it’s cold outside and you’re not.
34. Go on a nature hike
Our last winter activity in this list that I personally think should not be missed is a winter hike.
I know people prefer to hike in the warmer seasons, but winter landscapes are so beautiful and serene.
You get to see bare branches, frost, mist, quiet paths, pale sunlight, and sometimes snow if you’re lucky.
So, choose a trail or nature walk that looks really different during the colder months and bundle up properly before you go.
Bring a thermos and stop somewhere halfway for a hot drink.
A summer hike is about greenery. But a winter hike will feel more like wandering through the opening chapter of a fantasy novel.
Totally worth planning.
35. Watch the sunrise on a frosty morning
I am ending this post with a simple and pretty winter idea.
I realize that waking up early in winter seems like a punishment, but the magic of morning frost and sunrise will make it worthwhile.
Bundle yourself up properly, and head somewhere you can watch the sunrise without buildings blocking the view.
You’ll come back to your warm home feeling all frozen and awake, feeling like you’ve had a mini adventure before breakfast.
You can also write about the sunrise in your journal. It’ll be like capturing the frosty experience in words.
Make The Most Of Winter While It’s Here!
Okay, those were 35 winter activities that I think are actually worthy of your winter bucket list.
Pick the activities that made you immediately want to do them, because those are usually the ones worth actually putting on your calendar.
Winter won’t stick around forever, so wear the giant sweaters, make the warm food, go outside when the air is freezing, and collect a few good memories before the season changes again.
I wish you the happiest winter season with the coziest days ahead!
Leave a Reply