North Pole Party - Santa Plate & Ornament

My son's birthday is at the beginning of December.  We wanted to do something special for him since in the past few years his birthday has always sort of been overshadowed with the hoopla of Christmas coming.  We decided to bring him to the north pole. 

The invitation was like a note card.  On the front it read Twas getting close to Christmas and all the elves at the north pole were busy getting ready on the right side I made pasted another textbox w/the same green and white polka dot border w/all the birthday information.  "Please join us for Ben's birthday at the "North Pole" (aka your address) on date at time.  RSVP to Santa's helpers by date phone#.  We were also having a special appearance by Santa Claus so I asked that they not be late as Santa would be coming.

We decorated the outside of our house as much like the north pole as possible.  We live in the north east but it hadn't snowed so my husband actually rented a snow maker.  He also made a sleigh for our porch which we put empty wrapped presents in and bells in the front and lights around it.  We had our house decorated for x-mas with white lights and green garland around the porch columns and small bushes in front of our house and a wreath on the door. 

My husband and I used plumbing tubing to make a North Pole pole and sign for the front yard.  Inside we had our tree up w/lights (no ornaments yet) and subtle x-mas decorations around the house.  (more empty wrapped gifts around the house and we even brought my son's tool box up and some toys to make it look like the elves were working.)   When all the kids arrived we first decorated the tree together.  The kids got to pick which ornament they wanted to put on and we let them go two at a time (by the way we had 12 kids at the party.)  This took about a 1/2 hour which was perfect because then Santa arrived.  We hired the most amazing Santa I've ever met. 

He brought a suitcase w/items he uses at the north pole and showed them to the kids.  He helped them decorate the tree as well and he even read them a story.  I had given him a list of the kids coming in advance so he knew names.  I also had wrapped gifts for all the kids and put them in Santa's sack w/their names on them.  Santa called them up one at a time and sat them on their lap and asked what they wanted for x-mas and wrote it down on his list then gave them their gift/favor. 

Their favor was a plate for Santa's cookies and one small ornament.  Santa said he would look forward to seeing these gifts again on x-mas eve.  Before Santa left we took one group picture in the sleigh w/Santa and he then made sure that all parents had gotten enough pictures of their child w/him (this man used to be a mall Santa and hated the fact that the pictures always came out bad and there was never enough time to talk to the children which is why he started traveling to homes.) 

Finally Santa came to the kitchen with us to sing Happy Birthday to my son.  Because the kids hadn't eaten dinner yet I didn't want to do a big cake first so I decided to just have one cupcake w/a candle and the cupcake was my son's gift to Santa for coming. 

After Santa left the kids had pizza.  I had cooked gingerbread men in advance so after supper the kids all got to decorate their gingerbread man (to go w/their plate for Santa). 

After the decorating we sang Happy Birthday one more time and the kids had their own cupcakes and icecream.  Because the party was a little longer than usual I decided not to open presents.  Instead they stayed under the tree and we let my son open them after everyone left. 

The party was a huge hit.  It was nice that the kids were always busy especially since it was an indoor party.  Santa made my son feel so incredibly special.  In fact he asked if Santa would be coming to this year's party too.  Unfortunately we didn't plan for it which is why I went on this website to get some more great ideas!"