Because my child's birthday is in December, I decided to do a Winterland Fantasy party for her 2nd birthday. Since most of my friends are stay at home moms, I had the party on a Friday
during the day 10:00-12:00.
We had seven 2 year olds and 2 four year olds and their moms. The invitations consisted of holiday paper bought from Office Depot. The design was a snow scene with a snow man in the corner. The invitations wrote: Celebrate winter at So and so's 2 year old party. Wear your best seasonal clothes and bring a picture of yourself. Because we live in Florida, I turned the air down in our house and dressed my child in a snow flake sweater with a cute red skirt. I decorated the house with snow flakes (cut out of poster board) which hung from the ceiling by blue yarn. I bought snow man cups, plates, and table cloths. (You could make these your self by gluing cotton balls on a white table cloth and using a black marker for eyes, arms, and bottons. When the children arrived I had two play stations set up: I took a tent covered it in white and threw white balls (covered balls from ball pit in white fabric. You can use white styofoam balls too) in it. They had an "igloo" ball pit. The second play station was"color a snow flake." I put down a white sheet in the middle of the floor and had washable markers out in a big bowl. I cut out snow flakes and hung them on strings so that the kids could color their own snow flake. Once all the kids arrived, I gathered the kids at the table where they turned the pictures they were asked to bring of themselves into snowmen. On blue construction paper, they glued cosmetic cotton pads (two on top of each other) and cut out their head and put it on top of the pads making themselves snowmen. I then gave them white paint with a q-tip to make snow on the paper. After the craft, we gathered in the living room for circle time. I passed out jingle bells to each kid and we sang Jingle bells while shaking the bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Let it Snow (during Let It Snow I blew bubbles). For food we ate pizza and of course ice cream. The cake was a basic sheet cake covered in white frosting I then put little plastic evergreen trees on the cake, built a mountain out of frosting and put a plastic skier on top of the mountain. Each kid got a treat bag with a recipe for how to make a bag of ice cream (found at family fun.com), a sample bag of ice cream, a snow flake ornament for the Christmas tree, and snowflake stickers. I also told them to take home their snowmen, snowflakes,and jingle bells they got during the party. The kids had a blast and enjoyed a touch of winter inside although it was 90 degreees outside.