Wednesday, January 2, 2013

North Pole Party

A few months ago, like back in October, while looking for pumpkin carving party ideas, I stumbled across this little gem of a blog titled Enjoying the Small Things.  I started reading it, and I was completely swept away into the magic of this woman's world, the superb photography (amazing what quality camera's and just the right angle can do now days), and I remember thinking, "No one really lives like this. Do they?"  It struck me odd that almost every photograph, every event, every precise moment captured in her blog looks like it leaped from the pages of a magazine.  You know the kind of magazines I'm talking about...the ones where the kids are "oh so perfectly clean" and not a speck of dust or clutter can be found - the ones where the living rooms and kitchens and dining rooms in the back ground of the photos don't look like they could possibly be lived in. 

Yea, that.

Regardless, I do enjoy her blog.  Kelle Hampton has some really neat ideas for "enjoying the small things" in life and with her children.  Some of those idea's I've tried to copy.

Like the Party at the North Pole she planned for her children and friends.  I was absolutely thrilled with this idea, and decided to re-create it this past Christmas.  It was a huge hit with the kids, and since we were spending Christmas in Alabama, my sister and I put the party together for the eleven cousins on Christmas Eve. 

The kids had a fantabulous time.

My sister made one comment in regards to the original bloggers party, she wished she had posted more of a tutorial regarding what she did to create the party environment. So that is what I am going to try to do, but the idea for the party did not originate with me.

Reindeer Food Bar
 
I loved how the reindeer food bar turned out!  My sister found these ice cream bowls with spoons at the Dollar Tree, packs of 2 for $1!  What a great deal!  It was perfect for our bread crumbs, oats, flying power, cocoa, and crushed chips. (we chose not to use raisins for the reindeer food.)  The little jars the kids filled are the small jelly canning jars (which I kept to be re-used next year.)  The blue table cloth also came from the Dollar Tree, and was actually part of a bigger table cloth that we cut down to fit the two smaller areas we need table cloths for.   The glitter and penquin center piece were found at Walmart.
 
 
The Table Setting


Again, the table cloth came from the Dollar Tree, as did the ribbon down the center of the table.  Snowman plates, napkins, placemats, and the penquin were found at Walmart. Over sized candy canes came from the Dollar General store up the road from my sister's house. The back side of the place mats had Christmas scenes for the kids to color.

Milk and Cookies

 
We had to make cookies to leave out for Santa anyway, so we served both chocolate chip and sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles.

The bottles of milk were my absolute favorite part!!  The green and red crazy straws were found at Walmart, and fit perfectly in the bottles.   The bottles!  I didn't think to "google" or look up how to make your own milk bottles for a party, but I did look on eBay and google where to buy milk bottles.  The prices were a little ridiculous, really.  I kept going back to Kelle's blog and just studied and studied her North Pole Milk, and I had this AHA moment....really, it was quite silly how long it took for that light bulb to click on. 

Folks, I give you Milk bottles, made from recycle Starbucks Frappaccino bottles!  How awesome is that?!
 
We picked up bottles of Frappacchino's the day before the party, and we will not discuss how many the 4 adults drank down, considering they were $5.99 per 4 pack and we had to have 9 bottles emptied and cleaned by the next day - and since my sister totally shot down my idea of just pouring them down the drain - we sucked those things down.  In a day.  Four adults, 9 frappaccinos....we were up late....
 
The labels peeled off real easy, and an SOS pad took care of the extra stickiness and even removed the date stamp.   Awesome.  
 


 

 

Over all, the party was a huge success, the kids opened their new pj's pre-party so they could wear them during.  They had fun mixing up their reindeer food, and then pouring it out for Santa's reindeer to eat.  They colored their pictures for Santa, which were placed in a circle around the plate of cookies and mug of milk.   They rushed off to bed right after,  too excited to sleep but knowing that if they didn't sleep "Santa wouldn't come". 

I really cannot wait for next year.  When we get to do it all again.

1 comment:

  1. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! All of the kids had such big smiles....proof they were all having a great time! Well done!

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