• Activities,  Christmas Party,  Parties

    Clear Glass Ornament With Snow

    Are you looking for the perfect Christmas party craft?   These adorable ornaments are quick and easy for any age group.  Another great thing about these ornaments is they come require very little actual artistic skill and they come out beautiful every time.  This makes them a great choice for a party. We started with clear glass ornaments in various shapes and added Epson Salts as the snow. We prefilled the ornaments with Epson Salts for the snow.  We filled the ornaments between 1/2 and 1/4 with the Epson Salts because some people prefer them with more snow and some with less.  We prefilled because of the number of kids…

  • Activities,  Christmas Party,  Parties

    Reindeer Food

    One of the most anticipated activities at our annual Christmas party is the making of reindeer food. We begin with a large box of oats, though many of the kids do not realize it’s just oats. To this box each group of kids is allowed to add in some holiday magic (glitter). Next someone mixes it all together. The kids are then given small goodie bags and each child who would like scoops out one scoop of the reindeer food to take home with them and sprinkle in the yard on Christmas eve to give the reindeer a snack while Santa is inside their house. Plan to make more of…

  • Christmas Party,  Parties,  Sweet Treats

    Christmas party candy buffet

    While I love the look of some of the elegant, completely color coordinated candy buffets, I will, as I always try to do, go with an approach that is practical as well as beautiful. Typically around 30 children attend our annual Christmas party and because of this, gumballs and many of the hard candies that look so lovely in candy buffets are out.  I really don’t want to find gum and half eaten hard candies in my sofa for the next six months. Our candy buffet feature more candies that kids actually like.  We have red and green M&Ms, Christmas Hershey’s Kisses, Christmas Hershey’s Hugs, homemade Peppermint Bark , homemade Moose…

  • Activities,  Christmas Party,  Parties

    Photo Booth

    The first thing you need to do is make sure the photo booth is somewhere it can be seen and the props are easy to see and select.  This may seem obvious, but the first year we included a photo booth in our party we had it located in what we thought was an obvious spot.  The problem was, the props weren’t quite as accessible as they should have been. This year our photo booth will be well marked with a sign my daughter made on an easel we still had from when they were smaller. The background is a red and green backdrop which can be purchased at Amazon…

  • Christmas Party,  Parties,  Sweet Treats

    Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

    The final quick and easy treat for today is chocolate coated marshmallows.  The idea here is to get the delicious taste of a chocolate fountain treat without actually having to get out the chocolate fountain.  My kids love helping coat the marshmallows in chocolate. Simply melt chocolate – I melt the chocolate in the microwave and then use an electric melting pot so that the chocolate stays warm as we are making these and we do not have to rush to finish before the chocolate hardens.   Hold the marshmallow by one end and dunk the other into the melted chocolate.  Then place the half-coated marshmallow onto wax paper to…

  • Christmas Party,  Parties,  Sweet Treats

    Peppermint Bark

    Let’s begin with my son’s favorite, Peppermint Bark.  It’s funny that he likes this at all as he isn’t a big fan of peppermint in general and frequently finds minty flavors to be “too spicy”. Peppermint bark takes about 15 minutes to prepare and another 10 minutes to cool and it only requires 2 ingredients White Chocolate Candy Canes Note: You can use any type of candy cane, however I wouldn’t mix types in the same batch of bark as all types taste a bit different and might not blend very well. The first step is to smash the candy canes.  This step can be quite messy and quiet fun. …