Tis the season for all the Christmas festivities and we completed one of my favorites last weekend, decorating sugar cookies! I decided to take things one step further this year and invited several of our friends over for a sugar cookie decorating party, and it was surprisingly successful! I say surprising because my kids have never decorated sugar cookies on their own without either making a huge mess or getting bored in five minutes before, so I wasn’t expecting much. This time around, I tried a few different things, and all 12 of the present toddlers were engaged in decorating their cookies for 20-30 minutes, on their own! Below are my tips for throwing a toddler cookie decorating party successfully.
Use Small Individual Containers
If there is one thing I can recommend, and one thing we will do from here on out to decorate cookies, it’s using these tiny containers! I put different sprinkles in a ton of these containers with the lids on, and the kids got to pick the ones they wanted to use without spilling or needing an adult to help them. This gave them a ton of independence and helped keep their attention for longer amounts of time.
I also put small amounts of frosting in the cups and gave 1-2 to each kid along with a spreading knife. It was really nice as the mom to sit back while all the kids decorated cookies on their own. And the clean up was almost nothing! Win win win.
Keep it Outside
I know we are lucky to live in a desert where the temps are really nice in the winter, so we took advantage and moved the decorating party outside! We have a large coffee table outside which was the perfect size for a bunch of toddlers to stand and decorate, and come back when they were ready. There wasn’t a very big mess, but it was especially nice to brush everything onto the ground and hose it off after the party! If you can, I highly recommend taking the party outside.
Have Structured Activities
In addition to cookie decorating we also made hot chocolate and had a reindeer craft! The hot chocolate was super easy to make, (recipe here) and I served it in these adorable little cups. When the kids were done with their cookies, we let them play in the backyard for a bit and then redirected them to the hot chocolate when they got antsy. Towards the end of the party we gathered them all for a quick reindeer craft that I picked up from Hobby Lobby. It was easy for all the kids to do (even the younger ones) and then they had a fun little souvenir to take home.
Order Party Supplies
All of the decorations and party supplies came from a local girl who runs a party and paper goods business, Do It Paper! Everything she creates has so much detail and it was really nice to have such an easy setup. Especially since I put our kitchen back together the night before! I highly recommend her, she worked with my vision and brought it to life.
This was such a fun party and I’m so glad we went for it! I’m thinking it has to be an annual thing and I’m looking forward to many more years of this cookie decorating party with friends!
Liked this post? Check out my favorite Christmas cookie recipe HERE.