Chloe Thurston shares her tips on how to throw a fun Christmas party for children

Mama of five (soon to be six), Chloe Thurston lives on the south coast of England and is the founder of the blog Uber Kid. She has gained a following on Instagram for her play-themed posts, which share a peek inside her children’s imaginative bedrooms. Her interiors style is very much a meeting of Scandi-minimalism and colourful maximalism; as beautiful wooden toys, rainbow My Little Ponies and Care Bears explode from every surface in a sort of beautiful chaos.

When it comes to celebrating the festive season with her family, Chloe takes a similar approach to decor, dress-up and entertaining. Here, she shares her top tips for partying with little ones.

Festive Best

Our party dress code is anything Christmassy goes! I am a massive fan of Christmas jumpers, (like this one from Faraway kids at Kidpix) novelty or smart… outfit (and decoration wise) the more shiny, glittery and sparkly the better. My daughter has a fairy dress by Meri Meri that she loves to wear over the Xmas period and I can’t resist a novelty outfit for the babies, like a knitted reindeer suit!

Sparkly Christmassy hair clips come out for all the guests (like the gorgeous ones by Rockahula) and I like to leave lots of Christmas photo booth style props in a basket to grab, a reindeer mask, holly crown, Santa hat, Christmas themed necklaces (Meri Meri) all make for the best fun pictures.

Deck the Halls

My go-to party decorations come from Meri Meri, literally a one-stop place for all decorations, festive and sparkly. Garlands and bunting are hung wherever possible, stockings aplenty off every shelf, and as many twinkling lights as I can get my hands on to really get us in the festive spirit. I always include special Christmas crackers for each child at the party table, Christmassy tattoos and woodland setups dotted around for the kids to play with. Literally every surface has a deer, Christmas fairy and a bottle brush tree on it!

The tree (mine is from Marks & Spencer) is decorated with cute Meri Meri decorations from Scandiborn that the kids are always welcome to take off and play with and I normally decorate underneath with lots of the soft toys complete with their own party hats and crowns on for everyone to play with.

Fun and Games

This year we have some Christmas playdough kits from the wonderful Little Munchkins, deliciously scented with chocolate orange, baked apple and mulled wine for the littlest kids, with tree cutters and snowflakes stamps.

I always bake a massive batch of gingerbread biscuits for the kids to ice, decorate and hang on their tree with ribbons (or eat of course)! And we have a gorgeous reindeer piñata ready for after the party food and then Christmas movies to watch snuggled on the sofa for the evening eating all the treats!

Let’s Feast

We normally have a party with adults and kids so I lay a table for a good old fashioned roast for the grown-ups to enjoy during the kids Christmas movie times. My top tip for catering for that amount of people is to use the barbecue for the meat, leaving the oven free for the massive amount of potatoes and vegetables!

The children have their own earlier party tea, with sandwiches cut from reindeer and snowflake cutters, strawberry and cream Father Christmasses, and all the carrot sticks, cucumbers and fruit-shaped in Pinterest-sourced festive items (even if they don’t turn out that Pinterest-worthy when the kids and I arrange them)!

Magic Touches

Every year I always love putting together the advent calendar as a great way of building anticipation for the big day, as well as it being a pretty decoration in itself! We fill our one (Cam Cam from Scandiborn) with just a couple of mini presents (Christmas necklaces, Rockahula hair clips, a letter from Santa) but also activity prompts such as cookie cutters, Christmas decorations on tree decorating day, Christmas crafts, Christmas movie tickets etc. We also have a big stack of Christmas books, including ones from my childhood, that we add to each year which we leave out for all the party guests to read and reminisce over!

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@chloeuberkid

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