party planning 101.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before winter break, and that means holiday party time.

 But…

Things have changed since we were kids.

You can no longer bring in any type of home baked goods and everything has to be in the original packaging. The school wants the baking to be done by professionals so that no one ever accidentally gives kids food poisoning.

Also with food (and drinks) everything has to fall within the Healthy Food Guidelines. That means that the food has to meet the minimum nutritional value and not have sugar listed as the primary ingredient. I know that sounds simple enough but when you are looking at packaged snack foods it gets a bit difficult to find things that fit. So no more cupcakes (or pupcakes as my kids call them) or cookies at school parties! Which, I am okay with because I know my kids do just fine finding plenty of junk to eat.

Lastly, the party is called a Winter Party, not holiday party, and definitely not Christmas party. I am also good with this, I think it’s important to raise our children with an understanding and respect of different cultures and traditions and I’m happy to hear my children talk about different traditions that they have learned about in school. Just because they are in the majority of people that celebrate Christmas does not mean the the minority traditions are any less important.


It’s hard to come up with a fresh idea every time…I’ve done bagel party, fruit and cheese party, yogurt sundae party.

So as the planner for my son’s winter party I wanted to come up with a theme….kept thinking about winter…playing in the snow…hiking….winter survival. I decided to go with outdoor winter activities/winter survival. Personally, I thought this was genius because they had read the book Hatchet earlier this year and it is about a boy that has survived in the wilderness. So for my snacks I went with bottled water and make-your-own trail mix with dried fruit, nuts, pretzels, cheerios, & goldfish.

And then at dinner tonight my son tells me that they did this already this past fall.

Crap.

Oh, well. They’ll do it again.

At least I didn’t have to work around my daughter’s class allergies (nut, dairy, and gluten!) I better start thinking about that before the Valentine’s party that I’m doing for her.