Gingerbread Parties

Hi friends. Hope you had great holiday celebrations! I've set the goal to do MORE BLOGGING in 2013 so I'm planning to be posting lots more than I have in recent months. I have a lot to say but first I have to catch up on the busy holiday season.

This year Makenna asked if she could have a Christmas party with some of her friends. We thought about a few different ideas but ultimately decided to have a gingerbread party. As soon as Addison heard us planning she decided she wanted to have a party too. I decided to have 2 separate parties since the age difference was so large and it worked out beautifully.

Addison had her party first and we held it in the middle of a school day. I loved doing it this way because I felt like Addison's smaller party was "practice" for the bigger party a few days later. We invited 3 of her friends from church and their moms and had them over to decorate gingerbread houses. I pre made all of the houses out of graham crackers and used hot glue to stick them together. I made 15 houses for both parties and it only took me about an hour. Way easier than baking and assembling real gingerbread.

 We had tons of different candy for the kids to use to decorate their houses. This is only about half of the options we had. My plan was to have the kids snack on the candy while they decorated (good plan!) and then I had a few healthier things for the moms and kids to eat.

I was SO SO sad that after Addison's last friend left that I realized I hadn't taken a picture of all the girls together. I almost called the moms to come back to my house but I knew it was too late. Here's silly Addison with her house:

I sent all the little girls home with a fun gingerbread goodie bag. The bag and gingerbread house sticker set are from the Target dollar spot and I got the gingerbread girl Christmas ornament at a local craft store. 

A few days later Makenna had her party. We invited 6 friends from school and church and I was very pleasantly surprised that they all came. I kept the set-up really similar to Addison's party. 

 While we waited for all the girls to arrive I had the girls work on painting and decorating gingerbread men birdhouses (Michael's). They had a really fun time with these and embellished the heck out of their gingerbread people - thank you leftover scrapbook supplies.

The girls decorating their houses:

The finished products:

For food we set up a hot chocolate bar for the girls. I made a huge pot of hot chocolate and kept it warm in my crockpot. We had several different kinds of creamers, different flavors of marshmallows and candy canes to spice things up. We also had a popcorn bar where we had a couple different flavors of popcorn and a few varieties of cookies.

 The girls had a really fun time working on their creations and ate more candy and treats than I thought was humanly possible (seriously). We sent the older girls home with their gingerbread houses and birdhouses, a gingerbread painting set and gingerbread ornament. The girls are already talking about plans for their parties next year and I think we'll probably make this a new tradition!