With winter coming up, you might be thinking of things you can do with your friends and family for the holidays. One thing my family likes doing is getting everyone together and shoveling off the pond across the way (our friend's land) and skating on it. Usually it is nice and smooth.
If you don't have a pond or a lake accessible, or you just don't feel like shoveling, you can use the Boys and Girls Club skating rink or the Peter W. Foote Vietnam Veterans Memorial Skating Rink in North Adams. The Boys and Girls Club is in Pittsfield, on Melville Street, You can skate there from 2 to 3:45 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; admission for parents and kids without membership cards is $5. However, you can get a membership card and it only costs kids $3 to get in the rink. You can also get ice skate rentals (while they last) for $3 per session. The rink in North Adams is another place you can skate; the rink is open through February from 2 to 3 p.m Mondays and Wednesdays and 8 to 10 p.m. on Fridays. Saturdays and Sundays have family fun nights from 7 to 9 p.m. Anyone under 18 is $3; adults are $4 and seniors are $1. Skate rentals are $3.
Another thing my family likes to do is tubing. If you have a hill, an old tire tube, or a tube, you can have fun, and if you are more of dare devil you can build a jump of your own! But if you don't have a tube or a hill, you can check out Bousquet, which has a great tubing hill
If you don't feel tubing's your thing, you could check out Jiminy Peak's Winter Mountain Coaster, where you can go up to 20 mph or you can take a nice leisurely ride since you can control the speed yourself. One ticket is $9 or if you already have a lift ticket, it's only $7. Or if you take six people it's only $42.
Another thing you can do in the winter months is ice fishing. My family and I sometimes ice fish at Windsor Pond, and if the weather is bad we just dress warm and go out like Eskimos. If the weather's good, we go skating, as we wait for the red flags to fly in the air.
There are a lot of fishing derbies in the area as well. One thing you may like to do is go and see some festivals. One festival my family loves, and you may want to check it out to if you like to walk along and see hundreds of candles lighting up the sidewalks as Santa drives along, stopping every once and awhile to say hi, is Light up the Holidays in Dalton on Dec. 10 from 5 to 8 p.m. Light up the Holidays is a very fun festival because it makes you realize what Christmas is really about, and plus there's free food and drinks! One of my favorite places to stop is the Methodist church where you can get homemade cookies and fudges that are really tasty.
If you like festivals and skating, and tubing and roller coasters aren't your thing, you should check out the Festival of Trees at the Berkshire Museum, where hundreds of trees are lit up with Christmas lights and ornaments. I hope I gave you guys enough to do over the winter and have a great time this holiday season!
Jordan Budaj is a 12-year-old who loves to be outside no matter how cold it is.
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