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Taking the time to be at home with family and friends this holiday season? There will be much to do over the next few weeks during the holiday season. If you hadn’t found time to bond with the family, this is a good opportunity since work winds down for most people.

Whether you intend to host a party with extended family members or just want some quiet time with your immediate family, we put together some ideas on how you can spend time having fun with your loved ones just by being at home.

Sing Along at Home
Practice carolling or just love singing? You can do so with family or friends right at home renting a home karaoke system so you don’t have to buy one yourself.

If you do not own a home karaoke system, you can rent a Popsical which is a streaming device that is linked to a cloud-based music library and allows you to play more than 100,000 karaoke songs on your TV which you can sing-along to.

Or play Christmas song karaoke version for free on YouTube and teach kids to learn the lyrics to Christmas favourites - Sing King Karaoke

Morning Workouts at Home
Some say it takes about 21 days to form a new habit. Use the holidays to make time to start a new habit – wake up to morning workouts at home as a family. No need to go to the gym or out of the house. Better yet if you have a smart TV at home. You can stream home workouts on YouTube for free to help you get started. Here’s a few to check out:

•Yoga
Visit www.doyogawithme.com for hundreds of streaming videos of different time periods (to suit your schedule) for all levels.

•Cosmic Yoga for kids
Cosmic Kids Yoga’s YouTube channel has videos aimed on teaching kids yoga, mindfulness and relaxation. Their videos are colourful with animation, interactive and told through adventures to keep them engaged and easy to follow.

•Fitness
Popsugar fitness has various dance, workouts and exercises on their YouTube channel. They cover the buzzed-about workout classes and trends, including Victoria’s Secret workout, Tabata, P90X, Bar Method, and more.

Netflix with the Family
If you haven’t yet tried Netflix, this is the best time to try it out. There’re Christmas movies, documentaries, TV shows, cartoons for the kids (great idea to keep them occupied while you get started on house chores) and Netflix original content, its own in-house produced content.

Some titles we love watching to get in the mood for Christmas include:

•The Princess Switch
Vanessa Hudgens stars in this modern tale Prince and the Pauper movie where two look alike switch places in an attempt to run away from their own lives.

•Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
Torn between two worlds, he’s on a treacherous quest to discover who he really is and the hero he’s meant to become. The fantasy adventure film based loosely on The Jungle Book was produced by Warner Bros. but its release was delayed from 2016 to avoid clashing with the release of Disney’s Jungle Book adaptation. The film will be released on Netflix on December 7.

•Home Alone & Home Alone 2
Re-watch the 1990 Christmas comedy film starring Macaulay Culkin as bratty 8-year-old Kevin McCallister who had to rely on his wit to keep himself safe from burglars when he was accidentally left behind as the family left for a holiday trip to Paris. The sequel follows the same family but this time, during a family trip to Florida, Kevin took a wrong plane and ends up in New York City instead.

•Shrek the Halls
Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz star in DreamWorks’ Shrek the Halls, a television special aired in 2007. The story follows Shrek as he sets out to fulfil Princess Fiona’s wish for a special Christmas, learning about the celebrations since “ogres don’t celebrate anything”.

•The Polar Express
Based on a children’s book written by Chris Van Allsburg, the 2004 film tells the story of a doubting young boy who takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, embarking on a journey of self-discovery that shows him the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.

In the meantime, the holidays are a good excuse to catch up on old movies and shows or re-watch our favourite classics.