GingerBread Party...All the Sweet Details

Last weekend Ella and I hosted our 6th Annual Gingerbread Party. It is our most favorite Christmas tradition!

We started hosting this party 6 years ago. I love Christmas and thought it would be fun to have an afternoon with Moms and their girls during the holidays. Our first party we had 6 girls.

And this year we hosted 11 girls.

Each year we partner with a local organization to find a family in need of some help for the holidays. We send out the wishlist to the girls that are coming and they help us make the holidays a bit brighter for a special family.

Now onto party details! I will try to share as much as I can, as I have had lots of questions about the party details. Disclaimer....there is picture overload in this post!

For the houses, I buy the mini village kits. They come with 4 little houses, and each girl gets two house to decorate. I always pick them up during Thanksgiving weekend at one of the craft stores, as they always seem to have the best price then. I build all the houses a few days before to give them time to set.

The house kits come with lots of candy. I buy a few more things too...red & green m&ms, pretzel sticks, licorice, mini marshmallows, candy canes and cotton candy are a few of our favorites.

Lots of candy! I grab some small containers at Party City. They usually have some fun holiday designs and you can get a pack of 24 cups for around $4.

The past few years we have made peppermint paths for each girl. They are super cute and easy to make.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and line up 3 of the mint candies to form a path. You can make it straight or kind of curve it. Just make sure the 3 candies are touching. Bake at 350 for about 5-6 minutes and let cool. Luke was my helper this year.

As for the table. I add a banquet table to our dining room table and cover them in a disposable red tablecloth. That way I can just fold up the cloth and toss the mess at the end.

I use wrapping paper to make a runner down the center.

I went with plain brown and added ribbon, but a cute patterned paper would look great too.

Then we add all the candy along the center and a few decorative things. I have a few pieces of gingerbread decor that I have collected over the years that I add in.

The Santa had chair covers I actually got at our local Dollar Tree. Yep, they were $1 and they look so cute!

Each girl gets 2 houses, a sugar cone for a tree, a gingerbread man and a bag of frosting.

Our local bakery supply shop carries large cake boards. I cut them in half and add a paper placemat (from Party City). The girls attach the houses to their board and it makes it an easy way to carry home their designs.

Ella was ready to host!

This year the snow was falling like crazy...it was a Winter Wonderland! A perfect setting for the party.

We serve a fun drink for the moms.

Some festive veggies to balance out all the candy!

The girls of course had hot cocoa from our hot cocoa bar....

I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was so cute! Some Frosty cups filled with popcorn. It was a perfect little snack to have while decorating.

Let the decorating begin!

Love these sweet girls!

So pretty in their holiday best! I sure hope they still love doing this when they are in high school!

After decorating we played a fun Christmas "Minute to Win It'" game. The girls had a candy cane tied to a straw and they had to try and hook up some other candy canes.

It was a lot of fun...and much harder than it looked!

We partnered with the PUNT Foundation again this year to help out a family. This is a great organization that offers help and support to patients and their families dealing with life-threatening illnesses. Our friends were so generous to help fill our family's wish list.

Each year we send the girls home with a little thank you gift. This year we took advantage of a great sale on some cozy socks at Old Navy. I mean who doesn't love some cozy socks this time of year?