Cookie Party

The holidays came around and I got the itch to host a party. But hosting a party for adults seemed sort of overwhelming. What to serve, how to decorate, who to invite, and where were they all going to sit? Then I had a fabulous idea: host a party for the kids!

So a few days before Christmas I hosted a cookie-decorating party for Jett, Kai, and about 15 of their friends. I was really excited about it. We started making snowflakes to hang on the windows. I bought cookies and frosting. I baked. I sent out the invitations. Realizing that kids were going to be decorating and eating cookies on the ground, I furiously scrubbed my floor. Three days later we had a party.



We had 5 stations: pretzel sticks (dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles), decorating tiny gingerbread men (Jett insisted on having gingerbread men), decorating big cut-out sugar cookies, frosting Nutter Butters to look like snowmen (complete with coconut to look like snow), and cutting out Rice Krispy treats with holiday-shaped cookie cutters. Thankfully every parent there was willing to man a station as the kids, for the most part, traveled from one to the other.

We did the Rice Krispy treats on the floor because I ran out of tables.

My most brilliant idea of the day was to give each child a paper plate and crayon and have them write their name on a plate as soon as they arrived. Every time they finished decorating a cookie, an adult would take their cookie and put it on their plate for them. The plates were set throughout the room wherever we had space - on top of the TV, on our fireplace mantel, and on the window sill.

Just a few samples that Jett made.

At the end of the party we moved the tables to the side and all of the kids sat down for cookies and milk. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of this, but Jett, who had really enjoyed the party up until now, was at his wits end not being able to get a break from so many people in our house, so I sat with him and ate a cookie instead.

That's the one thing about hosting a party: I kind of lost track of my kids. I didn't realize that Jett was losing it until he had already lost it. (He recovered quickly). Kai roamed around from table to table eating all of the goods. Well-meaning parents handed him cookies to decorate at each table. He took each cookie and stuffed each into his mouth. While I refilled bowls of sprinkles and washed cookie cutters I caught glimpses of Kai out of the corner of my eye, walking around from table to table, mouth full, cheeks covered in crumbs, clutching a cookie in each hand. He didn't decorate a single one, and he loved every minute of it.

The boys and I had so much fun, we can't wait to do it again. The clean up wasn't so bad either because 1) some of my friends found a way to sweep up the floor even though there seemed to be a million little toes standing on it and 2) all of the remaining sprinkles left my house on everyone's socks. Perfect!