Frozen: A Birthday Party

For most people, the lull after Christmas is a welcoming retreat into ‘chill’ mode as the hustle and bustle of cookie baking, home decorating and gift wrapping comes to an end. But for this momma, the end of the Christmas season is like the sound of a gun marking the beginning of a race. With two little girls, their birthdays just two weeks apart in January and February, and my intense love for birthday parties, I spend the four weeks after Christmas up to my elbows in card stock paper, glitter, hot glue and ribbon.

We struggled a bit in December trying to nail down a theme. The girls had decided on a Sofia the First party, but my creativity was seriously lacking and Pinterest had completely failed me in my quest for Sofia party decorations. After seeing the new Disney movie Frozen for myself (the girls had seen it in early December), I begged casually suggested we switch themes.

Sorry Sofia, better luck next year.

I spent the next three weeks scrambling to create the Winter Wonderland I so desperately wanted. And needed. Unlike last year’s Wizard of Oz themed party, this year we had chosen a mainstream theme and I was confident I would be able to find all that I needed at local party stores. Or at the very least, a balloon or two with the characters on them. Unfortunately, my party planning coincided with Disney’s sudden drought in all-things-Frozen and every single store was “out-of-stock until mid-March.”  In fact, this was the cause of one embarrassing meltdown in Party City a week before the party, where I found myself crying to the cashier “you don’t have even one Frozen balloon? Not one?!” (Not one of my finer moments. The poor teenage girl must have thought I lost my damn mind.) Even finding T-shirts with the characters on them was near impossible. Lucky for me, a talented friend of mine at Darling Delilah creates these amazing hair bows and I was able to snag Princess Elsa and Princess Anna bows for my girls. We received so many compliments on them and my girls adored them.

Thankfully, with a little bit of imagination, a Frozen winter wonderland is easy to create shortly after Christmas… and before everyone packs up their winter decorations and hoists them into the attic.

I borrowed several strands of Christmas lights and any snowflakes or icicles that I could get my hands on to add sparkle and glitter to our home.

But I needed more snow.

I envisioned hanging paper snowflakes from our ceiling, but the thought of cutting out an abundance of snowflakes by hand seemed crazy…. even for a party planning nut like me. Thankfully, a good friend of mine has a Cricut machine and was kind enough to let me borrow it to help create my winter wonderland vision. My husband didn’t care for the idea of sticking 50+ pieces of scotch tape to our kitchen ceiling in order to suspend the snowflakes, so I settled for floating blue balloons overhead and taped the paper snowflakes on our cupboards and around our windows instead. (Although I did sneak a few floating snowflakes over the dessert table).

The dessert table consisted of cupcakes and cake covered in blue frosting and graham crackers and marshmallows dipped in white chocolate and blue sprinkles (super easy and a huge hit with the little ones).

I picked up several yards of blue/teal tulle (to match Princess Elsa’s dress) and created whimsical drapery on our mantle, entryways and windows. In the basement, I wrapped white Christmas lights (purchased at Meijer on clearance for $1.88 each) in white tulle and draped it across our basement ceiling to create an elegant and sparkly glow (a necessity when trying to create Elsa’s magical ice castle).

Over the past five years, I have learned that a $15 roll of plastic table cloth can prove to be both useful and decorative. The dinner tables and dessert dresser table were covered in the light blue table cloth and the remainder of the roll was used to create a backdrop for photos.

Initially, my husband poked fun of the snowflake covered backdrop, asking if we were going to be posing for Senior Prom photos.  But later he admitted that it added a bit of flare to the pictures and I have to say, I agree. Because let’s face it… when you hire Princess Elsa and Princess Anna to come to your party, you better have a perfect place for pictures.

And good Lord, there were pictures.

Despite my new million dollar camera (my husband swore that is how much it cost when he gave it to me on Christmas) breaking just minutes before the Princesses arrived, we were able to snag several pictures with the power of technology (aka multiple camera phones).

And the princesses… Oh. My. God.

I cried. I actually cried when they walked up the driveway. They looked amazing. We had ushered all of the kids into the basement just minutes before the Princesses arrived and announced that Mommy and Daddy had invited some special guests to the party. While I had anticipated giggles and jumping when they first laid eyes on their Frozen guests, their stunned faces spoke volumes and Charley’s running leap into Princess Anna’s arms made my heart soar. I swear, for the first time in her entire life, Charlotte Renee was speechless.

Having Princess Anna and Princess Elsa at their birthday party added more excitement, more whimsy and more magic than any amount of paper snowflakes and tulle could provide.  And if I am completely honest, I think having the princesses at the party was just as much a gift for me as it was for my girls, because I will never forget the excitement in their eyes that afternoon.