Children's Party and Crafts at Simpson United Methodist Church

In a short 2 and half weeks I planned a Christmas party for church members and neighborhood kids. It was quite an endeavor to take on myself. I've never planned or had a Christmas party before, and honestly I've never even been to one. I was handed the reins and allowed to design what I thought would be an awesome party if I were a kid again. I was fortunate to have a ton of  donated toys, gloves, hats, and scarves. There was 2 huge boxes from Toys from Tots, a huge donation from the local firefighters and another church was extremely generous and donated hundreds of pairs of gloves, hats and toys! It was overwhelming. I spent many countless hours wrapping presents and making lists.

I made a list and checked it twice!

Many of the presents already wrapped

Me

Toys for Tots.. so generous!

Stored and waiting for the party

Over the span of 3 separate days I wrapped over 300 toys, hats, gloves and scarves. All together it totaled 23 hours.  I enjoyed every minute of it. There was such a peaceful quiet that I do not get at home. My family calls me the present Nazi because I am a little OCD about how the presents are wrapped.  Which is ironic since I spent the first half of my despising wrapping presents and was infamous in my family for handing someone a gift still in the bag I brought it home in. 

Friday before the party I set up the tables and decorated the fellowship hall. I separated everything by age and sex and labeled everything.

Boys

Nice view of all of the tables

Girls

I had this set up so it would be quick and easy to get the kids through. The table in back is all hats and gloves.

These are goody bags I put together. They had candy canes, lollipops, pencil, eraser, and a notepad.  Yes, I drew and colored each and every one of these! 

Decorated and ready to party!

Somehow I misplaced all the other pictures of the decorations I had. 

I came up with a couple crafts for the kids to do.

Angels made from coffee filter, metallic pipe cleaners, ribbon and lollipops. 

Star Ornaments. Beads, pipe cleaners. Has to be one of the easiest ornaments to make.

I made this one with the metallic pipe cleaner for my Christmas tree.

Reindeer "hat"  I spent 3 hours cutting all these antlers out. The kids loved this!

Elf Ears "hat". Much easier to cut out, only took about an hour. LOL

Foam bookmarks, and foam stickers. Easy. The parents hung around this table and did this while the kids were running around doing other crafts.

Every one loves guessing games! How many do you think are there? We had only one kid who was close. There were 61 peppermints. 

We had 5 kids come close, but no one got the right count! Luckily had extra prizes. There were 28 candy canes. 

Birthday Card for Jesus. Everyone signed it! The kids and parents loved the idea.

Lunch line

First lucky few to get their lunch

Love the antlers!

Nom Nom

I unfortunately forgot to take pictures while the party was happening. I was busy making sure the crafts were going well, the kids were being fair with the guessing games and generally doing the meet and greet. I had a wonderful time and the kids loved every thing! 

I hope to help with parties at the church in the future.