Not every school will have a class Holiday/Christmas party but for those who do, here are some easy ideas on how to throw an awesome party for your kiddos!

Craft 1: Make your own snowflake ornament. I got this kit from Oriental Trading Company during their Black Friday sale. My biggest tip for when you have a craft for the kids to do is to do it yourself first to see how long it takes an adult to assemble everything. Upon making one myself I realized we may run out of time for the kids to assemble these if I didn’t do a little work on them ahead of time. So I assembled the pipe cleaners for them. I also realized I didn’t need to buy this kit if I had beads on hand. (I did not, so I had to buy this regardless.) But if you have beads and pipe cleaner laying around, here are the directions on how to make them into snowflake ornaments.

Take 3 pipe cleaners and stack them together, then twist them a couple times right in the middle so they attach to each other. Then spray out the ends creating 6 even spokes like this:

Next, thread your bead of choice on each spoke, leaving about 1 inch empty at the end so you can fold the end back on itself to keep the beads from falling off.

When you get to the last spoke, instead of turning the end back on itself, make the end of the pipe cleaner it into a loop. Then, thread a ribbon through and tie it in a knot at the end to create the hanger for the ornament. The finished product will look like this:

Craft #2: Make your own gingerbread house. You could go all out and actually have the real ones that the kids assemble with frosting. But I intend to still have the will to live at the end of the party, so I like the foam ones you can buy at Michaels or Hobby Lobby like these.

Craft #3: Color your own winter slap bracelet. I got these at Oriental Trading. You can also just print off free Holiday themed coloring sheets for free off the internet. I feel like my 6 year old gets those as an activity a lot when the weather is too shitty and they have indoor recess though, so I went with the slap bracelets instead of coloring sheets.

Craft #4: If you really need a fourth craft, an easy and cheap one is to have each student make their parent a Holiday card. All they need are markers and some construction paper – both items readily available in a grade-school or preschooler’s classroom.

Game 1: Santa Bean Bag Toss game. You toss fucking cookies into Santa’s mouth! Ha! I got this one pictured below at Oriental Trading but if you’re a crafty mofo, get yourself some left over cardboard from your Amazon deliveries and make your own!

Game #2: Christmas Bingo. This is another game you can do on the cheap as there are plenty of free printables online of Christmas Bingo cards. Then use little candies like Red Hots, M&Ms, or Hershey Kisses as the markers!

Game #3: Poke-a-Tree. This one is extremely easy for younger kids (like preschool age) but I figure my first grader’s class will still enjoy punching a cup and getting a prize for it. I made mine quite easily and will list the steps below:

Game #4: Go fishing for candy canes! Shout out to my sister-in-law, Valerie, who sent me this idea she’s using in her son’s preschool class. You just take a piece of yarn and tape it to the end of a candy cane. Take the other end of the piece of yarn and tape it to either a chop-stick or un-sharpened pencil and voila – a DIY fishing pole! Then, sit a plastic cup on the floor full of candy canes and have each kid try and “fish” for the candy canes in the cup using the candy can you’ve taped to a stick as their fishing hook. It’s a good fine motor activity for young kids and a cheap game to make, so it’s a win-win!

I am all about having a spare craft or game ready to go just in case the kids fly through their activities faster than you anticipate. So for me, Bingo is usually my “just in case” activity I keep in my bag of tricks. I hope you found some of these ideas helpful! And shop wisely – once again I got these items at least 25% if not 50% off by shopping the sales. Black Friday/Cyber Monday was my bitch this year for school party materials but if you shop December 26th for next year, you’ll find some smokin’ deals!

I live for Christmas so I went a little nuts and also got mini tote bags that I am filling with a couple items for each kid. Each kid will get a mini stuffed snowman, a holiday themed rubber stamper, a large candy cane, Christmas glitter tattoos, and some candy. My daughter is extremely excited to decorate a gift tag for each kiddo to attach to the bags. I got all the toys/bags from Oriental Trading and the candy from Target. Your kids are only little once, so go balls to the wall I say! Happy Holidays!