Guidelines in Planning Christmas Party for Young Children

It takes more than cookies and gummy bears to plan a Christmas party with small kids as the main attendees. You’ll need the right Christmas party supplies, ranging from decorations to food, games and favors to successfully create a jolly atmosphere to get the children in the spirit of holiday fun. Thankfully, everything can be had from your favourite online shop to make your planning less stressful and without much difficulty.

The truth is there’s no magic formula in planning a Christmas party for kids. In fact, you can consider the same steps used in planning other parties. As long as you keep your preparation within a set of guidelines, you can make the party safe and enjoyable not only to the children but also to you and to other adults invited as well.

Make a Guest List. Knowing who are coming to attend will allow you to customize the games and food. If the kids belong to the younger age range, consider simple and easy to play games, such as Musical Chairs while playing Christmas songs, Pass the Candy Cane, and the traditional exchange gifts. When you see that there are older kids coming over, you may prepare games apt for their age, like hitting Christmas piñatas of Santa Claus and Snowman.

Having a list of names of who’s going to the party will enable you to prepare enough quantity of food, favors, prizes, and gifts. You can also identify kids known to have allergies to certain food; thus, you can decide not to include such item in the menu. More importantly, you can streamline the list by eliminating some names that are consistently troublemakers. Don’t feel guilty not inviting them or your kids’ party will turn out one disastrous affair.

Pick an Appropriate Theme. It can be easy to use Christmas as a theme. After all, the party is really about Christmas. However, you can also choose party themes that are appropriate to the age of the kids, such as Disney Princess, Cowboy, Circus & Clown, and others. Regardless of what theme you use, don’t forget one important element that can raise the level of kid’s excitement to fever pitch: a surprise visit from Saint Old Nick. Getting a Santa suit is not much of a problem. However, you may have to find someone on the heavy side to wear it. Otherwise you may need to stuff your body with lots of fillers in order to fit in the costume.

Serve the Right Food. Make the menu as festive as the season. Christmas party foods for kids must have all the elements that will remind them of Christmas. While it’s a plus to have plenty of sweets, it doesn’t mean you’re not including healthy food among the selection. The trick is to make these items as vibrant as the holiday colors. Present the line-up of food choices on a table covered with Christmas holly garland table cloth. Traditionally, children would be asked to bring their own tableware. Instead, you can continue the holly theme by providing holly plates and napkins to be used when it’s time to eat.

Here are some goodies that will take the children’s attention away from the games momentarily.

• Appetizers: Make Frosty and Santa health advocates by decorating their cheese ball bodies with carrot sticks, pineapple squares, tomato slices, cherries, and crackers. Surround the two fat figures with creamy ranch dressing with tiny broccoli twigs and red pepper strips to make the dish look like a snowy Christmas village. Add a plate of red and green apple wedges that can also be dipped in the same ranch dressing, or you may opt to whip a cream cheese sauce. Even non-veggie children will be dipping on this healthy offering.

• Cookies and Cupcakes: Let the children design their own gingerbread man and cupcakes. Set jars filled with different kinds of toppings and frosting which can be used in decorating their unique creations. Make sure to tell the kids their imagination can only go as far as to the quantity they can manage to eat so that they will not be too carried away by their creative passion.

• Main Dishes: Children will have more than they can chew by serving slices of Christmas pizza topped with cherry tomatoes and lots of mozzarella turned green with food coloring. Other main fares are snowman-shaped cream cheese-filled sandwiches and waffles filled with diced red and green fruit jellies.

• Beverages: Serve traditional drink of hot chocolate with cinnamon stick in holly garland cups to warm the children. Make sure to have cold drinks, such as lemon-lime soda and apple juice punch to freshen the kids after sweating it out in one of the party games.

Children are generally easy to please. Whatever they experience in a party becomes a great source of fun and enjoyment. All they want is to play and win some of the prizes. They will not even remember all the frills you spent hours on, nor the food you served. Therefore, you can keep the party simple and don’t over complicate it with anything extravagant that the children will not even notice. Aside from the polka dot loot bags filled with party favors, all they will bring home are the good memories they had from the party.