Daniel's Nutcracker Party

For what feels like the whole of the last year, Daniel has been dreaming and talking about his Nutcracker Party.  It all stems from the fact that he absolutely loves the Tchaikovsky's music from The Nutcracker.  At first I wondered what on earth we would do to set the scene since most of the ideas on the internet involve pink and ballet.  In the end I think we managed to create a perfect Nutcracker Party for our 4 year old son.  Danny's excitement was tangible the day the party arrived and he had the time of his life (and this time so did we)!  

The Invitation

Once again Dad designed the perfect personalised invitation.  He is so good at coming up with a novel idea.  When Danny saw it he asked if he was the nutcracker and since he was the star of the show I guess the answer was 'Yes'!

The Cake

The Nutcracker cake was pretty easy to make.  Danny and I had fun baking the two square chocolate cakes.  Dad did a sketch of the Nutcracker and planned how to cut up the squares and put the pieces together to make a soldier.  We did the finishing touches with icing pens and used smarties for the facial features and sliced marshmallows for the teeth.  Danny was suitably impressed and said it kinda looked like a Nutcracker!

Impressed!

I want to eat it now!

Oh all right - let's save it for the party!

The Decor and Food

The savoury food was just good old traditional party fare.  I always like doing fruit spears and this time they took the form of swords. It was easy to create the land of sweets with mice, snowflakes, fairies etc in mind. It consisted of pink and white chocolate mice, mini-meringues, marshmallows dipped in hundreds and thousands, popcorn balls, red and white candy canes and swirly rainbow lollipops.  The beautiful buntings that Janine made finished it off perfectly!

The Picnic

Luckily we had a sunny day so we could use the garden at the church hall that we rented.  It is a lovely secluded setting - spacious and relaxed - exactly like I envisaged it would be.  The children enjoyed a feast on scattered picnic blankets and played together freely even though they didn't all know each other.  I purposefully didn't want a structured party with too much organised entertainment.  I wanted a traditional old-fashioned party for a change so I was pleased!

The Music, The Dancing and Pass-the-Parcel

A nutcracker party would not be complete without a bit of Tchaikovsky's music.  Although the music and the story is all too familiar to our boys, I'm not sure if everyone shared their enthusiasm, but they seemed to enjoy it all the same.  Luckily we have some modern classics too which inspired some dancing.  Pass-the-parcel is always a big hit at this age and this time everyone was a winner getting some random little item!

The Jumping Castle

Oh, and we had a jumpy castle, not only because it fitted in with the theme but also because kids simply love them.  It wasn't the centre point of the party, which I was happy about, but each child had some time on it at some point during the afternoon.  It was a total surprise to Danny which had the desired effect of revving up the excitement!

The Treasure Hunt

At the last few parties I've been to I noticed that the children really enjoy a treasure hunt so for days I tried to think how I could incorporate the theme but I didn't come up with any great ideas.  At the very last minute I decided to do a Nursery Rhyme treasure hunt because, let's face it, all kids know and love the traditional Nursery Rhymes.  It started with Here's The Church, Here's The Steeple (Where were the people hiding?) that lead them to the front door of the church, then Banbury Cross (What landmark can you find in Banbury?) that lead them to a cross in the church yard, then Humpty Dumpty (Where was Humpty sitting?) that lead them to a wall surrounding the garden, then Rock-a-by-Baby (Where was the baby's cradle) that lead them to a tree in the middle of the garden, then Little Boy Blue (Where did Little Boy Blue find his sheep?) that lead them to the meadow section of the garden and finally The Candy Man (What did the Candy Man make?) that lead them to 'the land of sweets' and the cake.  They loved it!

The Sing-Song

I always hand my camera to one of my friends, and I always enjoy seeing the end result, especially the look on the birthday boy's face. Strangely enough Danny was quite bashful about being the centre of attention this time.  Only until it was time to eat the cake though!

The Party Bags

As usual we had fun making up the party bags.  We decorated white paper bags with nutcracker stickers.  They contained: a Dover Little Nutcracker Activity Book, a chocolate nutcracker, a chocolate mouse and a sherbet straw.  During the party the children also got to add the swirly rainbow lollipop of their choice from the treasure hunt.  They seemed to be well received!