An Arctic Winter Birthday

Let's hear it for December Birthdays! My husband and daughter both have them.  Making each of their days special while still in the throes of holiday planning can have it challenges but I like to think of it as more reasons to celebrate in an already festive season.  This year she turned 8 and asked to spend it with just our family, in an arctic wonderland.  The first part was easy, the second took some creativity since we live in Southern California and have been experiencing an unseasonable heatwave this past week.

We had fun filling the ceiling with hanging paper snowflakes and baking a chocolate icebox cake (cute huh?) complete with delicious marshmallow frosting.  I found some glittery white foam sticker paper and we created these sweet winter wonderland cake toppers.

In addition to party games like ring the reindeer's antlers and pitch the marshmallows into the cocoa, we built sugar castles and igloos out of sugar cubes and royal icing.

When I found these little metal, water resistant capsules though, I knew there had to be a frozen scavenger hunt to go along with the arctic theme.  We filled each one with tiny, and I mean tiny, paper scrolls with clues written on them, then placed each capsule in silicone dishes of water to freeze.  The idea was for her to find the clues frozen in their ice orbs and wait for it to melt before heading to the next frozen clue.  I mentioned the freak heatwave right?  To compensate I filled each at different levels, the smaller orbs would be the first clues, melting faster then the last and largest which would ideally stay frozen until we reached the end.  They worked beautifully and she has a great time.

We ended the evening with our traditional back yard movie night snuggled under blankets (the heat finally relented) with popcorn and Wallace and Grommit. A good day for all.