Congratulations on deciding to incorporate Theastmas  into your holiday traditions!

The best part of celebrating Theastmas is that it is designed to be a calmer and more relaxing holiday than the rest. In fact, you probably already have everything you need to celebrate Theastmas right now. So pull out the remnants from your holidays past.  Those extra paper plates, napkins, cups, candy and holiday cookies in the freezer are fair game. Your guest list should be only composed of the people that love you and make your life great, so you shouldn’t need to worry if things aren’t perfect. (EXPERT NOTE: As you grow in your Theastmas joy you may want to subsidize your existing items with gear and decorations from the Merchandise  section of  www.Theastmas.com)

One of my favorite parts about Theastmas is incorporating traditions and foods from Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. Even as an adult, a part of me never grew up. I still want a chance to find Easter eggs and take a turn hitting the piñata. During the traditional holidays, I encourage the kids from the sidelines, but on Theastmas everyone is in the game. All of the events are open to everyone. I want even the adults to have a chance to have fun and be involved in the activities. Theastmas is my way of giving back to those who mean the most to me.

Our 1st Theastmas Party

We had started talking about Theastmas around 2010 and even had a rough sketch of what it would include. However, it took us until 2015 before we hosted the first Theastmas party.

Our first year we experimented with a lot of crazy ideas. Some ideas were great and we kept them and others, were a little … off. We dropped the ones our guests didn’t like for the 2nd annual Theastmas party.

The Good

The guest list was great. A primary reason for the Theastmas season is to reconnect and hear the stories of the people in your life. During the other holidays, we have so many expectation that we often miss out on really interacting with each other. The first Theastmas party delivered on this aspect perfectly.

We had an Easter egg hunt with a family tradition twist. Growing up, my Dad’s side of the family would always have an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Each adult would bring a dozen dyed hard boiled eggs to the hunt. The hard boiled eggs were inscribed with notes for the children to claim money from their Aunts and Uncles. The inscriptions varied in amount, but they would generally say “See Aunt Blank for $#.##”. (NOTE: My wife, when reading this post, said Aunt Blank is her favorite. I personally like Uncle Insert Name Here.) The kids would exchange the egg for cash and the eggs would then be put into the egg salad meal. My Aunts and Uncles were always pretty funny and used this process to poke at their siblings. I can still remember my Dad’s disgruntled face handing over $5 to one of my cousins. As an adult, I continue to find this process pretty funny and incorporated an egg hunt with this theme into Theastmas. I didn’t want to bankrupt my friends and family, so for our 1st Theastmas egg hunt we kept the notes to $0.25 or below. We did a slight modification from the egg hunt of my youth and used plastic eggs because dyeing several dozen hard boiled eggs is quite a bit of work. We filled many of the eggs with candy (no chocolate, as I learned on a hot Easter day at the age of 10 that chocolate in plastic eggs can be messy) and many notes. We also had two special eggs with $5 in each one (See the Bad section for more details about the expensive lost egg.). The best part of the 1st egg hunt was to see my egg hunt reluctant friends start scurrying to participate once they realized they were on the hook for cash in these eggs.

Like all great American holidays we over indulged. We had a Theastmas feast (no roastbeast). For appetizers, we started with popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans, candy corn, peppermint candies, and candy canes. My healthy sister brought an amazing veggie tray in the shape of a Christmas tree. For dinner, we had BBQ chicken and corn muffins instead of turkey and rolls. We served green bean casserole (a staple in our house for Easter and Thanksgiving), stuffing (Thanksgiving), fruit salad (Easter), cranberry jelly (Thanksgiving), and a salad with hard boiled eggs (dyed eggs for Easter). For dessert, we had three types of cupcakes and displayed them in a Christmas tree shape. We had cupcakes topped with peppermint buttercream with red and green sprinkles (Christmas), cinnamon buttercream with a candy corn (Thanksgiving), and a tricolor buttercream with sprinkles (Easter). We also lit the fire pit and had roasting sticks to make s’mores, although we used Peeps (Easter) instead of marshmallows.

We bludgeoned a piñata. One year we will have a plethora of piñatas. But year 1 we just had one. See The What The… section below for greater details. Although the shape of the piñata was off putting, the males in the group especially enjoyed hitting a piñata and the kids loved the candy.

We had goodie bags for everyone filled with holiday themed stickers, pencils, and scratch off lottery tickets. Why scratch off lottery tickets? TRADITION! Both sides of my family have a Christmas tradition called a White Elephant Gift Exchange (click for for a Wiki article for more info). Everyone has different rules for playing this game. However, the general idea is that everyone draws a number. You pick a wrapped gift in order based on your number. In our family, you unwrap your gift and either keep it or swap it. You can swap your gift with someone who went before you. The game keeps going until the last number. Presents with scratch off tickets are hot commodities. One year my Mom put in gag gift scratch off tickets that were guaranteed winners. My cousin was a poor college student and happened to get this gift and kept it until the end. He scratched off the tickets and it showed he had won a huge amount of money. Unfortunately, Mom had to break the news to him that they were gag gifts and not official lottery scratch offs. He was crushed. She thought an older adult would get the tickets, so she in turn was crushed that she had upset him. So for Theastmas everyone got REAL scratch offs with the hopes that someone would win big. We had a few dollar winners, but nothing major.

The  staples that everyone loves at the holidays are a nice surprise during the summer.

The Bad

Our decorations were pretty light the first year. We had pulled a few items out from our regular holiday decorations and Sarah modified an old Christmas wreath into a Theastmas wreath by adding Easter eggs, foam pumpkins, and a pilgrim rubber duck. We also made a Merry Theastmas garland. The decorations were fine, but we have found that much of what makes Theastmas fun is the planning. We have ramped the decorating up for events over the years.

Although a custom piñata is awesome, either we have all become weaklings or my wife built paper mache capable of holding up the Chrysler Building. The 20 of us hit this piñata with varying bludgeoning devices as much as we wanted, plus 10 more minutes, before it finally opened up. Pull string piñatas are much easier. If you do decide to make your own piñata, don’t over do it. Nothing ruins Theastmas like a trip to Urgent Care for a torn rotator cuff.

Keep track of where you hide your eggs. Our Theastmas bunny in year one couldn’t remember where he hid one of the $5 eggs and it sat in our backyard until our 2nd annual Theastmas party when the bunny found that same great hiding spot. It was a Theastmas miracle!

The What The …

We were still trying to nail down our favorite things and involve lots of people. I had come up with a list of memories from different family members to make sure each family was represented and involved in the event. One such memory involved my Uncle accidentally being hit in the groin by my 4 year old nephew. The height was just perfect for this trauma. Even though it happened about 8 years ago, people still talk about it. To commemorate this event, Sarah made me piñata for Theastmas in ball shape. If I had put more thought into it, I would have recognized that most people (especially men) don’t want to smack a large anatomically correct piñata until it breaks. Although the craftsmanship and artistry of the piñata was amazing the fundamental concept was deeply flawed.

Closing Remarks

The big learning from the first Theastmas party is that no matter what you do, it is hard to mess up Theastmas. Have fun with it and enjoy the people in your life.

Merry Theastmas to all and to all a good night!

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