Merry (almost) Theastmas! I hope everyone has an amazing time tomorrow!

As we prepare for another gathering of our friends and family, I wanted to get in a post of last year’s Theastmas celebration.

The inside of the house was decorated with snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, the paper lantern turkey I had made, Easter baskets filled with eggs, small Christmas trees, and a Merry Theastmas banner. I placed the snowman in the backyard and strung Christmas lights on the back porch.

The snack trays were once again laden with holiday themed candies. We had Reese’s eggs, bunny shaped chocolate covered Peeps, jelly beans, Peeps Oreos, candy pumpkins, pumpkin spiced Oreos, pumpkin pie M&M’s, Hershey’s Caramel Apple chocolates, candy canes, and Christmas lights suckers. We also had popcorn, pretzels, and a veggie tray.

For the main meal, we had turkey sandwiches, cranberry, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and salad. We found a nice precooked turkey breast at Costco and sliced it into thick slices for the sandwiches. I love this turkey; it is similar to eating a Thanksgiving turkey but without all the work! We had a tray filled with a few different kinds of sandwich bread, lettuce, cranberry jelly slices, and condiments. A big veggie filled salad seems to be a main staple of all our parties, but the Theastmas salad has to have dyed egg slices!

After filling our bellies, it was time to have some fun! We once again had a piñata. At this point, I think the kids would revolt if we didn’t have one. We try to change the piñata each year to rotate through the seasons. Originally, we were going to have a snowman piñata, but after three tries of smashed piñatas arriving in the mail, we decided to go with an Easter piñata. Of course then I couldn’t find an egg piñata, but we ended up finding an oval shaped piñata and made our own Easter egg. You would think that by now, I would realize that I have to buy this stuff at the end of season sales. I do great with the candy, but haven’t gotten there yet on the piñata. Luckily, it was pretty easy to retrofit an oval shaped piñata into an egg!

Because July tends to be rather warm where we live, we didn’t put any chocolate in the piñata or the eggs for the Easter egg hunt. We had a few chewy items like Air Heads and Cow Tails, but we left the piñata and the eggs inside the house until it was time for the events. We also had a lot of non-candy items for both events. We try to get a variety so everyone can find/trade for something they like. This time we had toy airplanes and cars, sticky snap hands, punch balloons, bracelets (both plastic and candy), mini slinkies, some small animal figures, parachute guys, bouncy balls, bubble gum, Pez dispensers, and pencil toppers to name a few.

We took a break after the piñata to chow down on some sweets. For dessert, I made sugar cookies in the shape of turkeys, Easter eggs, and candy canes. To go with the cookies, we had peppermint chocolate chunk ice cream. After everyone had eaten their fill, we moved on to the egg hunt. While the egg hunt still included everyone, both adults and kids, this time we added some eggs just for the adults. We bought jumbo sized plastic Easter eggs and filled them with mini alcohol bottles. We tried to get a pretty good variety so there was something for everyone. They ended up being a big hit and I think we will continue doing that for future celebrations. The kids also got a few new items in the egg hunt. I found these cute tin ornaments in the shapes of snowmen and Santa that contained Sweetarts and Nerds.

As it became darker, the adults settled around the fire pit to relax, and the kids ran off some energy playing tag. Towards the end of the evening, we brought the traditional Peep s’mores table out to the fire pit for one last dessert.

All in all, I think everyone had a great time. I’m looking forward to spending time with everyone again this year.

I hope you all have a very Merry Theastmas tomorrow! – Sarah