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Winter 'One'derland Party -1yr- Gift Relay

August 2007

Sharon in Waterbury, CT USA

Honorable Mention

For my son's first birthday party we had a winter one"derland party.

For an invitation I made a collage card on shutterfly.com. On the front I used 4 different pictures from the whole year the first was a newborn then 4 months old then 7 months old then 10 months old. Under the pictures the card read "It's A Winter "One"derland B-r-r-r-thday Party. Inside it had all the information who where time and rsvp info.

I used a mix of decorations for Christmas and Happy feet. I bought polar bear and happy feet plush Christmas tree decorations when they went on sale after Christmas and used them as table decorations/balloon weights. For balloons I bought a mixture of one year old happy Feet and snowflakes. I used fake snow for decoration and plastic snowflake ornaments and placed it all around. I also used pictures from every month up until 12 months old to decorate.

For games we brought our Little Tikes kiddie pool and filled it with ice and magnetic fish. The kids all got to go ice fishing with the special magnetic fishing poles and the winner received a keychain in the shape of a snowman or a snowflake. The ice fishing was the hit of the party and the kids were found all day around the pool fishing.

The next game was Pin the nose on frosty. We drew a nice picture of Frosty on paperboard and used two-sided tape on black buttons so they would stick. The winner of that game also received a keychain.

Next we drew a picture of a penguin and cut a hole in the belly and placed it in front of a box. I filled baggies with marshmallows and those were used as snowballs for a snowball toss. I gave the kids three snowballs each and the winner again received the prize of a keychain.

The piñata was a mumble pull-string from happy feet and we filled it with candy and small toys and I gave each child a baggie to gather up all the toys when it came raining down.

For activities we had a make your own sno-cone and then we had a hot cocoa with marshmallow station.

Because my son was only turning one and didn't have much interest in opening gifts I divided the kids and whichever adults wanted to participate into two teams and we had a gift relay. The teams had to open their gift and keep it with the card and then throw the paper in the trash and run back to tag the next person in line the team to finish first was the winner. I opened a bag of mini play-dough and let all the kids choose a couple canisters as a prize so everyone would feel like a winner. Of course the gift relay was a huge hit because the kids loved the idea of being able to open gifts at someone else's birthday party.

For a cake I ordered a plain white sheet cake with blue writing that said Happy 1st b-r-r-thday. I decorated the cake with penguin and polar bear figurines I found in the dollar store and used sugar cubes for snow and to make igloo's for the top of the cake. We also sprinkled edible white glitter on top of the cake for a snow effect and served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. My husband made an igloo out of dip using a soccer ball pan and he made penguins out of black olives for decorations. The cookies were Italian annisette cookies with white frosting and edible white glitter for snow mixed on a silver tray with white chocolate snowflakes. We used mirrors with confectioners' sugar to look like snow and placed the dip and penguins made of olives on that.

For party favors I ordered Happy feet favor boxes that came prefilled. I made a winter scrapbook of his first birthday and had everyone sign a page with their best wishes for him and hired a friend to take pictures of the day and after the party I put the book all together and am planning to give it to him on his eighteenth birthday.

When all the kids were leaving I gave them the polar bear and penguin ornaments with balloons to take home and gave the framed pictures of my son through the year to the adults to take home.

To set the scene I downloaded winter songs from Christmas CD's and played them softly in the background all day. Some of the songs included Winter Wonderland Happy Birthday to You Jingle Bells Frosty the Snowman and some favorite nursery songs. I also purchased a blue plush crown with a big one on it that my son wore proudly all day and I used a great picture of him dancing with the crown on to make the Thank you cards on shutterfly.com."

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