For my son Patrick’s first Birthday we did an Elmo theme party since he absolutely loves Elmo.  Our house is in the middle of being renovated so we decided to have the party at the local American Legion hall.  For invitations I found a woman who makes themed invitations with personal pictures. I used a picture of Patrick and his favorite stuffed Elmo.  The card was one-sided 4x8 and half was our picture and the other half was the picture of Elmo from Elmo’s World invitations. They read, “Patrick is Turning One. Elmo says Come Join the Fun.  The 17th of May is the date Please come help us Celebrate”.  There were also little cartoon pictures of Elmo and at the bottom said “Brought to you by the number 1 and the letter P”.   Every guest that called to respond said they had never seen invitations like that before. For decorations I did everything in the primary colors Red, Blue and Yellow. I had 7 round tables for seating that had alternating color tablecloths. For the centerpieces I wrapped gift boxes either in red, blue or yellow and hot-glued crayons all over them.  I found these very discreet little stands and sat various sesame street stuffed animals on top of the box (my son has the Gund collection) but I did use mostly Elmos. I then had balloons tied to the stand all in the primary colors.  I made sure that every table had alternating tablecloth, box and animal (ie. Yellow tablecloth, blue box, red stuffed animal). I used a lot of balloons all over the room as well as other stuffed Elmos.   When my son walked into the room he looked around in amazement.   The party was mostly adults – 40 and about 10 kids. For food I had some appetizers (cheese and fruit tray, spinach dip and chips) for when people came and then a hot buffet and cold cut platter and chicken fingers for the kids. For desert I had an Elmo sheet cake made at local grocery store and trays of cookies. I used red, blue and yellow plates, napkins and utensils for dinner, but for desert I used the Elmo’s World plates.  I had an Elmo piñata filled with candy, bubbles and miniature play-dohs.  My sister hired Elmo to come to the party and he was a huge hit! They did the hokey pokey, the chicken, the parachute, he had a tunnel they went through, the train and the finale was a machine that blew hundreds of bubbles around the room. He also took pictures and cut the cake with the birthday boy. Favors; everyone got a Hershey chocolate bar, I had Hershey bar labels made up with Elmo saying “Happy 1st Birthday Patrick” and “Thank You for Coming”. For goodie bags I bought Royal Blue gift bags and used a glossy label I had made up, also with Elmo and saying “Happy 1st Birthday Patrick” and “Thank You for Coming”.   I put Elmo coloring books, crayons and Elmo stickers in them.  For the little ones who couldn’t get anything out of the piñata I included Elmo smock bibs in their goodie bags.  I finished the bags off with red or yellow tissue paper.  For thank you notes I am using the Elmo’s World thank you’s.  Everyone had a great time at the party and my son was surprisingly good, considering he missed a nap. When I originally started planning the party I was going to keep it small and simple, but I’m so happy with how everything turned out.