Children aren't exactly thinking about school when the Winter holidays start (and who can blame them), but squeezing in some numeracy and literacy between the hot chocolate and snowball fights is a great way to keep your children's skills sharp and their motivation to learn maintained.
Put the Holiday Spirit in Learning:
If all your child can talk about is the upcoming holidays, then put the festivity in education! Even something as small and whimsical as reading a festive story lends itself to your child's education as it engages their brains and expands their vocabulary.
Activities which require a little more planning such as Holiday baking (mince pies, fruit cake, stollen cake, etc) are great for practicing maths skills as well as creating a tasty treat afterward. You can alter these recipes to challenge your child in different ways by having them convert metric units to imperial and visa versa, or calculating the weight of individual parts of the recipe to accommodate to different serving sizes.
Games usually played during the Holidays such as Monopoly, Charades, Scrabble etc, are great at exercising Maths, English and Verbal Reasoning skills, (though play with caution as certain games like Monopoly have the power to make people flip the board over and storm off mid-game) and songs like The Twelve Days of Christmas are fantastic for exercising memory.
You can even have a go at practicing some Non-Verbal Reasoning by having your child describe and create patterns and reflections in decorations and wrapping gifts. They can try their hand at making 3D snowflakes, drawing holiday objects at different angles, and themed origami. You can even sneak learning into the toys you buy them for the holidays, such as a book they might like, a puzzle-based/ pattern-based toy like dominoes, or a stack of cards (children love competitive card games, especially after they have won a few of them).