July is a busy month for our family - Jaxon's and Aidyn's birthdays are in August and September, respectively. And, if you've been reading the blog for any length of time, it shouldn't surprise you to hear that July is generally when we start planning our family Halloween costumes. So, with this year's festivities well under way, it occurred to me that I hadn't posted anything about Jaxon's party last year. (What with our blog not having been launched until nearly a month after his party.)
But it was such a doozy of a party, I thought I would still share.
THE INVITATION (addresses have been removed to protect - well - me)
THE MENU
Well, it was a bit of a task to come up with themed food for this particular party, but I think I managed to pull it off with a bit of searching around on the Interwebs (and of course, watching Charlie Brown cartoons for every holiday didn't hurt either)!
Treats
- Jelly Beans (from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)
- Popcorn (from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)
- Pretzels (from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)
- Hershey's Kisses with Snoopy Stickers AKA "Kisses for Lucy/Dog Germs" - Avery Label 5472
- Oreo Dirt Cake AKA "Pigpen Pudding"
- Oreo Truffles surrounded by candy AKA "Rocks from Charlie Brown's Halloween Bag" (from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown)
- Cupcakes with Snoopy Rings (rings purchased from Ebay seller)
Beverages
For the Kids:
Linus and Lucy Libations
- Linus Red - Kool Aid Tropical Punch
- Lucy Blue - Kool Aid Berry Blue
Woodstock Water
For the Adults:
- Charlie Brown Cocktail - Mt. Dew
- Schroeder Soda - Wild Cherry Pepsi
- Snoopy Slurper - Sierra Mist
- Sally Sipper - Cherry 7Up
DECORATIONS
Be prepared that if your child chooses a Charlie Brown themed party, that the pickins will be slim in terms of decorations you can purchase. In fact, you will probably search high and low (I recommend search terms Charlie Brown, Snoopy, AND Peanuts) and still not find very much. I found a few Peanuts mylar balloons online that I added on to my Peanuts plates, cups, and napkins order, but I printed, cut, and stapled Peanuts cartoons to create party streamers. I used the extra comic strip print outs to make paper cones for the popcorn (shown above).
ACTIVITIES, PRIZES, and GOODIE BAGS
For the party activities and prizes, I also had to dig deep for anything that was Charlie Brown/Peanuts adjacent.
Activities
Snoopy Shuffle (musical chairs to Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi)
The Great Pumpkin Toss (water balloon toss with orange water balloons)
Water Baseball (baseball with water balloons)
Take Away the Football (football shaped pinata)
Prizes
Peppermint Patties
Snoopy Toothbrushes (Dollar Store purchase)
Snoopy Stickers (eBay)
Goodie Bags
I purchased bright yellow gift bags and black rick rack. I cut the rick rack to size and hot glued it to the bottom section of the bag. Then, I used Microsoft Word to create an oval callout with each child's name with Comic Sans font to mimic the font used in comic strip text. I cut out and glued each oval callout to the upper right corner of a bag.
Hope these ideas inspire you to give a Charlie Brown/Peanuts party a try should your child request one.
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LATE BREAKING NEWS! For anyone interested in throwing a Charlie Brown/Peanuts birthday party soon, get thee to a Michaels quick! I was there yesterday seeing if they had their Halloween decorations out yet, and I spotted Peanuts character cupcake liners in the baking section - that would have certainly helped with this party had they had them a year ago!
ReplyDeleteWhere did you find all of the comic strips just on a google search? I am trying to create a 50th snoopy party for my father and am having little luck, some of these ideas are a big help! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Ashley - yes, just Google it and pick the ones with the highest resolution. I placed the images into two 8 1/2 X 11 pages and then printed multiple copies of those. Once you've cut them out and assembled them, no one will notice that there might be duplicates in the group. Good luck with your party!
ReplyDeleteSuch a great idea, all of it! Where did you get the design of your invites? Did you print them from a survive (like shutterfly)? Thank you for the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous! The invitations were "designed" by yours truly. And I really do use that term loosely! I used plain old Microsoft Word and every designer's absolute FAVORITE font (Ha!) Comic Sans to mimic a comic book font. I inserted the speech bubbles as a throwback to the Peanuts' comics, making sure to use plenty of Peanuts' themed language. I believe I used a Charlie Brown stripe image that I found on Pinterest as the main graphic and then flooded the background with a color that matched the background of that image. But you could easily create a black zig zag by inserting the Wave Banner Shape from Microsoft Word, filling it with Black, removing the outline, and then joining several together. I emailed the invitation as a pdf, so I did not print them. Good luck with your Charlie Brown invitations!
ReplyDeletewhat did you put in the goody bags?
ReplyDeleteHi Lori! For this particular party (since we had such a hard time finding things that were related to the theme), I handed out the bags empty and let the kiddos fill them with their prizes from the games (everybody got a prize - not just the winner) and whatever they got from the pinata. The pinata was HUGE, so they were able to fill up their bags in no time!
ReplyDelete