Fun Christmas Party Ideas For Kids Xmas

Finding Christmas party ideas for kids can be a huge task. Start early to collect Christmas party ideas for your kids this year. This can be an enjoyable task or it can be one more stressful item added to your holiday “to do” list. There are two basic types of parties that take place during Christmas; age appropriate Xmas party ideas for kids and parties for adults. Within each of these categories lie multiple smaller categories. In the kids section you have parties for toddlers, Santa believers, and teenagers, school parties, daycare parties, etc. For the adults the varieties becomes endless; office parties, friend parties, formal events, informal events, the list goes on and on.

For this article’s purposes we’ll focus on party ideas for kids. Here’s a fun plan if you’re looking for Christmas party theme ideas; schedule a gingerbread house construction or Christmas cookie party. Choose which type suits you best and begin organizing all of the necessary equipment and supplies in advance.

For a gingerbread house party, this is a basic list of what you’ll need so the child attending can create their own little house to take home with them after the party:

• A couple boxes of graham crackers for the floor, walls and roof

• Flat, sturdy holiday themed paper plates to build each house on

• A good recipe for frosting (the frosting needs to be pretty thick so that it dries a little harder; it’s being used as a sort of glue), the frosting will “glue” the framework of the house together and will also be used to pipe on designs and “cement” the candy decorations to the cracker

• A nice collection of food coloring to create your basic Christmas colors

• Couple boxes of small baggies to use for piping the frosting. Each color will need its own bag and you can determine (based on how many kids will be there) if each child will get their own bag with each color or they can share the bags amongst themselves. (keep in mind that younger kids like to taste the frosting as they work and sharing could create a germ issue) To use baggies for piping bags, add some frosting to the bag, squeeze out the air as you zip it shut, snip a tiny corner off so that the frosting can be squeezed out through this tiny opening.
  

• Collect assorted bags of small candies in advance to use as decorations. Colorful gumdrops, little redhots candies, nerds, candy canes, colorful M&M’s, cookie sprinkles to add a touch of sparkle to the snowy areas of the roof (snow = white frosting), any miscellaneous candies you come across at the store that will add a punch of color and fun to the houses, maybe some square candies to use as chimneys
  

• Prepare the table with a plastic tablecloth, have seating for each child, alert the Mom’s to the fact that they are welcome to stay and help with younger kids, place an already pre-built house shape on the paper plates so that the kids don’t have to mess with waiting until their walls and roof are dry enough to work on (yes, it’s best if the party is for younger kids that you pre-build each house form before the party so that the kids can get to work right away with the decorating)

• Plastic sheeting to place under your table and chairs area. : ) Do NOT forget this part!

Gingerbread Party Tips

So now you have a general idea of how to prepare for a gingerbread house party. You’ll want to adjust your advance preparations according to the age group of the children attending. I’ve had many of these little gingerbread parties because one of my kid’s birth date falls in December. Every time we had one of these the kids had a blast; boys and girls both. With meticulous pre-arranging of all the small details, having the houses set up and ready to decorate, frosting in bags on the table, candy ornamentation in various little bowls spread all around, it should take about ½ to 1 hour to complete a house. With lots of licking and sticky fingers in between, you’ll be tired by the time you’re done cleaning up. When doing this for a child’s birthday party it’s a good idea to have cake and open gifts first, then head straight into the decorating.

For a cookie decorating holiday party you might want to have the cookies made in advance and ready to decorate once the kids arrive.  If you’re going to have lots of time available for the party, you can make the cookies while the kids are there by having the dough all rolled out and ready to go, cookie cutters at the ready (think about buying the pre-packaged sugar cookie dough).  For shorter time spans though, it might help to have some, or all, of the cookies already made.

Here’s a basic list of things you will need:

• Plenty of sugar cookie dough, whether you make it yourself or buy it pre-made

•  A nice assortment of Christmas cookie cutters

• Rolling pins

• Good frosting recipe or lots of pre-made frosting in the colors you will need.  The little tubes of pre-made frosting work great for piping on controlled amounts

• Plenty of food coloring if making your own frosting

• Lots of assorted cookie sprinkles in every color you can find

• An assortment of small candies to add a little extra flair (Christmas candies work great for this)

• Christmas motif paper bowls for the little candies so that you can place them throughout the table area.  This eliminates the problem of kids passing decorations back and forth and possibly spilling

• Christmas paper plates or platters to send home a variety of cookies for each guest

• Saran wrap to wrap the plate of cookies (the red saran wrap in nice for this)

• Lots of wax paper to lay on your table during the decorating process

• Again, protect your flooring under the table area – the sprinkles can be a mess

• Maybe some little cheese knives to help the kids spread the frosting easily

• Christmas motif paper or plastic cups for drinks during the party (they’re going to want to eat at least ONE of their cookies right away)

• Might as well get some holiday napkins, too (just the table setting is going to cover your room decorating problem for the party atmosphere!)

• Bows and/or ribbon to top off the saran wrapped plates of cookies is a nice touch as they head for home and makes the cookies less apt to spill all over the car