Fun for all

Houston's 13 best family-friendly activities for winter break fun

The kids are out of school for two weeks. Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s are coming up in rapid succession. How to keep everyone entertained? Check out our list of favorite winter fun for young and the young-at-heart alike. Note: those who want to ensure they catch all the light displays around the city should see our list here.

Museums

Children’s Museum Houston
Get out and play in the snow during Polar Palooza Snow Days between December 21, 2024 and January 5, 2025. Included with the museum’s general admission, kids can make snow angels and snowballs and enjoy other wintry fun in the museum's courtyard.

Houston Museum of Natural Science
On December 21 the museum celebrates the first day of winter with 110,000 pounds of snow. Snow Flurry features sweet treats, live entertainment, a DJ, and other family fun. On New Year’s Eve, adults can enjoy Mixers and Elixirs, with food, live music, and a champagne toast.

Meow Wolf Houston
From a honky tonk dive bar to a never-ending dance party, Meow Wolf’s Radio Tave blends art and storytelling into an immersive adventure through creativity. Guests must reserve a time in advance, and can also grab a bite at the on-site restaurant. The museum is open every day and is currently offering a four-pack promo discount.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The museum’s annual Winter Break offers activities for families, including making art inspired by the current Gauguin in the World exhibit. In addition, the museum is open every day from December 26, 2024, to January 5, 2025.

Ice Skating

Green Mountain Energy Ice at Discovery Green
Open every day during the holiday break, the popular attraction lets guests glide on the ice against the backdrop of the downtown skyline. Each skating session is 75 minutes and skate rentals are included. Sessions, $18, must be booked in advance.

The Ice Rink at The Woodlands Town Center
Open daily through January 20, 2025, guests can reserve two-hour skating blocks starting at 4 pm each day. Concessions are available on site, allowing skaters to refuel and wind down. Admission and skate rentals are $15 for those six and up and $7 for kids five and under.

Ice Skate Memorial City
The Memorial City Mall ice skating rink offers open skate hours throughout the winter break. Admission is $10, with skate rentals an additional $5. Lessons are available as well. Skate times can be booked online.

On Stage

Alley Theatre
A Christmas Carol runs through December 29. It’s the classic tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. But will that be enough to make him change his ways? Tickets start at $69. There are no performances on Christmas Day.

Houston Ballet
The holiday favorite The Nutcracker runs through December 29. Follow Clara and her magical nutcracker through battle with the mouse king and on an adventure through the Land of Sweets. One of the world’s most popular ballets, this production features the choreography of Stanton Welch. Tickets start at $37.

Houston Symphony
On Monday, December 26, mariachi Sol De Mexico de Jose Hernandez presents Jose Hernandez’s Merry-Achi Christmas. It's an evening of holiday favorites with a surprising mariachi twist, including "El Niño del tambor (Little drummer boy)," "Himno de la alegría (A Song of Joy)," the Nutcracker Medley, and others. Tickets start at $65. The concert is at 7:30 pm.

Stages
The theater continues its holiday tradition with Panto Pinocchio. An update on the beloved fairy tale of a wooden boy who comes to life, this version showcases Pinocchio as a sentient AI boy created by tech-savvy inventor Gill Bs. He and Buttons embark into a world of digital mischief and adventure.

TUTS
The company’s production of Disney’s Frozen runs through December 29. Based on the beloved movie, this beautiful stage musical tells the story of Elsa, Queen of Arandelle, who’s accidentally cast her country into eternal winter. Her sister Anna leads the charge to help Elsa understand her magic and melt the frost. Tickets start at $34.50. No performances on Christmas Day.

More Festive Fun

Moody Gardens
Holiday in the Gardens offers an array of activities every day of the school break. At Ice Land, there’s an arctic slide and ice carvings. The Festival of Lights takes guests down a trail of twinkling artistry. Plus, there’s also the Pyramid Aquarium and 3D and 4D theaters. Passes are available as all-inclusive or a la carte, allowing families to choose their own adventures.

Children making snow angels at the Children's Museum Houston

Courtesy of Children's Museum Houston

The Children's Museum Houston has real snow as part of Polar Palooza.

holiday activities winter break families family friendly

Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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Fun for all

Houston's 13 best family-friendly activities for winter break fun

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