The Treasures You Seek

The week before Christmas, my husband and I filled up our travel mugs with coffee and ventured forth into the dark of night. The classic holiday tunes on the radio, with a little help from our car’s heater, kept us warm as we made our annual trek around town to view all the holiday décor. We were armed with our official 2024 Scavenger Hunt checklist. The list included items we look forward to every year. The old favorites that keep us grounded, but with a hoped-for surprise or two.

Some items on our list were easy to find.

A house with only white lights? Check!

A house with multi-colored lights? Check!

A house with more than five Christmas inflatables? I know the spot! Check!

A house with a laser light show? There’s one less than a mile from our home. Check!

How about a light show that matches up with a local FM radio broadcast? There WAS a house that did that last year. Just need to turn right at the corner! Check!

Some things on our list turned out to be surprisingly elusive.

A house with a wreath in every window. Seriously? Took us more than an hour.

A molded plastic wise man wearing a blue robe? You gotta be kidding me! There used to be a million of those!

The joy was definitely in the hunt. A great night of fun, laughter, and anticipation! Afterwards, however, I started thinking. What if it wasn’t just one night? What if we took the idea of a Holiday Scavenger Hunt and applied it to the entire year? What if, instead of searching one night each year for the glorious items on our list, we did it every day? And, if we did, what would our list look like? Surely more than simply house decorations.

New Year, New Treasures

January is still in its infancy, and there’s plenty of time to look ahead! Think about this new year and all the fabulous new experiences just waiting to be added to your list… to be discovered, uncovered, or recovered as you go. Think about the treasures you seek. The new skills you might want to learn. Or places you’d like to travel.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Take a day-trip adventure
• Get a great night’s sleep
• See a movie in the theater
• Read a book by a new-to-you author
• Learn how to do something you haven’t done before
• Paint the front door (or a room in your house) a fun color
• Visit a pumpkin patch and carve a jack-o’-lantern
• Throw a party
• Watch Fourth of July fireworks and say, “ooooh” and “aaaah”
• Write a letter to someone
• Turn off the phone for a day
• Watch a glorious sunset
• Have a snowball fight (or a fuzzy, plush snowball fight)
• Make homemade ice cream or popsicles
• Yell outside and listen for an echo
• Schedule a family game night
• Dance in the kitchen
• Compliment a complete stranger
• Try a new food
• Work a big jigsaw puzzle

Download Your Very Own Scavenger List

Click here to download a list of Scavenger Hunt items and/or a blank Scavenger Hunt list you can fill in with your own ideas. Then, as the year moves along, keep your list someplace handy—the front of your refrigerator or inside the front cover of your planner. Someplace where you’ll be reminded, and where it’s easy to cross things off as you do them.

Remember: You won’t find any of those things if you’re sitting at home on the couch, staring at your phone, or scrolling social media. So, make it a great year filled with grand memories of time shared with those you love best! And, even if you’re thwarted (like we were in our pursuit of a molded plastic wise man in a blue robe!), the most important thing is the joy that comes from the hunt.