A Christmas Play-Date

School was out for Christmas Break at the end of the day on Friday, December 18th for both of the girls.  It seemed that a couple of girls wanted to come over to our house for a play-date right away, so I talked to Steve and we made a plan to invite three of Sam's friends and two of Sophia's friends over on Saturday afternoon from 4-7 pm.  And, we told them to wear their pajamas!

As is my usual thing, I planned a couple of crafts for the kids (we need to have some organized play amongst the chaos) and opted to order pizza.  Steve chose a Christmas movie for them to watch in between and there was hot chocolate, cookies and candy canes before they left.

Our first craft consisted of making snowflake and gingerbread boy-shaped crayons out of old, broken ones that we had in our house.  I did this with Samantha two years ago and she gave them to her friends as gifts.  I still had the molds so I had my two girls sort through all of the crayons earlier in the day and set aside the broken ones for the project.  Then, I baked them in the oven and let them cool.  Later in the evening, the girls were each able to choose two snowflakes and two gingerbread boy crayons to take home with them.

Peeling the papers off the crayons:

Cooling:

Sitting in a circle, taking turns choosing their crayons:

Our other craft project involved each person making their own glitter ornament that they could take home and put on their tree.  I already had the glitter on hand (of course!) and the ornaments were cheap at this time of year.  Add a hook (again, I have lots!) and they were all ready to take home to hang on their tree later that night.

I filled the ornaments with floor wax, one of the best options for a sticky inside and Steve helped the girls (and Jack) funnel their chosen glitter colors into the ornaments:

Making sure that the ornaments were completely dry before packing them -- carefully -- into their take-home bags:

Pizza for everyone, always a crowd-pleaser ... and easy for me too!

Sophia and her friend, Claire.  They attended preschool together last year, but do not see each other much right now because Claire is a bit older and is in kindergarten. 

Sam's friend, Lily, is the oldest of four and just adores Jack.  They cuddled in together to watch the Grinch movie.

 

Overall, it was a fun event for the kids and really helped to put everyone into the Christmas spirit.  It was perfect amount of time (three hours) and the kids were already in their pajamas and ready for bed by the time all of our guests departed!