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Holiday Kickoff Make ‘N’ Take Playdate

November 19, 2015 by Jaimi Erickson 1 Comment

Ready to have the ENERGY to be the best mom you can be? Get started! Thanks for stopping by!

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Stay-at-Home Mom Problem: Going an entire day without adult conversation! Solution? Host a playdate. With a free printable invitation, ideas for make n take items the moms can make for themselves, or use as DIY gifts for the holidays, the kids can play and you can get some adult conversation and build friendships.

This post contains affiliate links. Please view my disclosure for more info.

Stay-at-Home Mom Problem: Going all day (and sometimes longer) without speaking to another adult. It happens.

Playdates are great ways to connect with moms who are doing what you do each day-connection is important. I recently learned about the idea to host a holiday kickoff event. Our holiday planning can sometimes be overwhelming. I like asking other moms questions about how they prepare so I can learn. This is the why and how for hosting a holiday kickoff make ‘n’ take playdate.  I even have a free printable invitation you can personalize.

I think designing a playdate around a make ‘n’ take just makes the get together more fun for the moms. So many events we go to as moms are about the kids. This is a way to focus on us moms.

In the past, I made a habit of hosting playdates at my house. In fact at our last two bases (my husband is military for those who have not read about me) I was sort of the “playdate coordinator”. I really like connecting with other moms. It helps me realize I am not alone. It’s why I like that we have a private Facebook group just for us stay-at-home moms–we can share and connect in those moments when maybe we realize we have gone far too long without adult interaction. 🙂

I decided to invite a few moms over to get together and share our holiday organization ideas. A few of us already made a holiday planning binder at MOPS. It has been helping so much just to have everything I need for planning for the holidays in one place. This holiday kickoff event idea is credited to Marsha Ramsland. You can learn more about her in my holiday planning binder post.

Since I use essential oils, I figured it would be fun to share some DIY home and beauty items I make with oils as potential DIY gift ideas. We made them as special treats for us this time.

My friend Jessie, who has shared a guest post on the blog before, has a home-based business making wine jelly. (Yum!) So I asked Jessie if she could co-host the event with me so her Five O’Clock Jelly could be featured. Lucky for me, she agreed and was excited for the event!

One of the No-Stress Guide to Planning for the Holidays giveaways includes 3 jellies from her collection.

They are great for making Christmas cookies, using as a sauce over meatballs, or using as a quick appetizer with cream cheese as a dip for crackers. Head over to enter that giveaway and the others if you have not done that yet.

How to host a holiday kickoff make ‘n’ take playdate

  • Plan your location.

I like hosting playdates at my house, but you could arrange for a clubhouse space, or use the kitchen at your church and that would work great for a make ‘n’ take location.

  • Create an invitation.

You can download and print my invite template and fill in your info in the designated areas. Just highlight and delete my wording, or keep it if it works for your event. Add in the RSVP details and save it before sending to your friends. Many word processing programs have invitation templates that you can customize easily too.

Free printable invitation for a holiday kickoff make n take playdate. Moms can make spa and home items with essential oils and the kids can play. HOw to ideas included.

 

  • Decide who to invite.

For me this was easy because I have only lived in California for a year, so my social circle is not large. I invited the moms who sit at my table at MOPS plus my friend Jessie who is a fellow military spouse.

  • Email your invitation.

I like email because it saves paper, everyone seems to have a smart phone, and usually people can reply relatively quickly. You certainly could create invitations to mail out. That would be a really nice touch!

  • Plan food and kids activities.

KIDS

I keep the kids activities really simple. The kids usually occupy themselves pretty well, so I don’t create busy bag or table activities for my playdates. We have a small bounce house that we bought the kids as a joint birthday gift 3 years ago. It has been the absolute best toy we ever purchased! I set that out when we have a group of kids over.

 

Other than the bounce house, I usually have Crayola Color Wonder markers and Color Wonder paper on-hand. That way I don’t have to be so focused on the little kids coloring in the wrong place.

FOOD

My friend brought the bulk of the food. Jessie brought her wine jelly/cream cheese appetizer, meatballs with wine jelly sauce, and jelly thumbprint Christmas cookies. Her jelly really is so versatile!

Five O'Clock Wine Jelly-great easy appetizer or meal ingredient for flavorful and unique holiday dishes.

I provided simple drinks like my new favorite natural energy drink, water, coffee, tea-the staples. It worked.

  • Prepare for declines.

It happens. People can’t show up. It can be hard to get excited for an event and then have people not be able to attend, worse they could say they are coming and not show up! (I have had that happen too.) Just appreciate the friends who do show up. Don’t worry about numbers.

  • Prep your Make ‘N’ Take stations

1. Purchase supplies like glass jars, lip balm containers and metal spray bottles, shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, etc.

2. Plan how you are going to set up the stations.

3. Type up and print off recipe cards for each station.

I typed the recipes, printed them, glued them to cardstock and laminated them. After adding some strips of burlap to clothespins with hot glue, I had little stands for each recipe card so they were easy to read.

Essential oils make n take recipe card stands used at a holiday kickoff make n take playdate.

4. Gather festive placemats, cloth napkins, or scrap pieces of fabric to use as placemats at each DIY station.

  • The day before the event prep your base for any lotions or lip balms. 

This was a genius idea I found on Pinterest so I always have my shea butter/coconut oil lotion base ready for adding oils.

  • The day of, quickly declutter and get organized fast, then set up your DIY Make ‘N’ Take stations where you have space. You can see in the photos I set them up in the kitchen. They needed to be accessible and out of the reach of little hands!

Holiday kickoff make n take playdate DIY spa and home item stations.

  • Set out your food.
  • Enjoy your holiday kickoff event!


I received nice comments about the holiday kickoff make ‘n’ take playdate. We shared some ideas for giving gifts-this is so helpful for the difficult-to-buy-for folks or if you are just not very good at gift-giving (like me)! It was nice to just to get to know a couple of ladies better.

I will be sharing all the DIY gifts we made at my holiday kickoff make ‘n’ take playdate over the next couple of weeks. They are really inexpensive ways to maximize your essential oils, give gifts that are useful, and maximize your budget.

Young Living essential oils starter kit

Want to start gathering DIY gift ideas for your friends and family? The 12 Days of Christmas DIY Gifts event on Facebook is going on now! I will be sharing my favorite oil on Saturday, November 21st , so stop by and check it out.

Holiday Kickoff Make N Take Playdate how tos and free printable invitation. Included are simple food ideas, kids activities recommendations and make n take station set up. Moms can get some planning and me time and the kids get to play!

Do you make or buy gifts for Christmas? What are your tips for planning for the holidays with kids?

Successful Mom Daily Checklist to help you gain balance between housework and play time with the kids. Get more done, and feel more successful as a mom and homemaker.

Enjoy your time at home!

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Filed Under: essential oils, homemaking Tagged With: Christmas, DIY, Holiday Guide, homemade, make n take, playdate, Thanksgiving

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  1. Kids Nature Mural Art for Outdoor Play | The Stay-at-Home-Mom Survival Guide says:
    July 15, 2019 at 8:40 am

    […] or other plant material laying around in your yard or the park. This is a great activity for a group playdate with friends […]

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I am looking forward to making memories, soaking in time together and celebrating two milestone birthdays - one happening tomorrow. 💛 

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🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all t 🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all the kids actually goes well!!! 🌟 

Ice cream after helped of course. 😂

All prepped for my in-laws coming to visit us after not seeing them since our move last summer. Looking forward to some fun events ahead that will make my kids think they are on spring break but they will technically be field trip days. Check, check. 

Are you guys on spring break this week? What do you have planned?

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Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, fill your mind with encouragement and just keep moving forward. 

Recovery days are not just for working out. They are for the mental state we walk around with too. Yesterday felt heavy. My God is a power lifter and takes the burden away. 

Today will be better.

Today we will rest and refocus.

Hooray for comfy jeans, motivational graphics and the Word to focus on through it all. 

(Faith fashion: @choseninchrist use code Jaimi to save.)

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🌟That Face!!🌟 That little boy is soon to t 🌟That Face!!🌟 

That little boy is soon to turn 13, guys! I mean in a few weeks. 😅

This is a throwback but brings back so many fun memories. 

—————————————

I love creating activities and crafts on the fly. Always have even before my kids were here.

I noticed that my son did not have a lot of little toy people to play with while he was pretending one day. We have a few cylinder blocks in a set. We never used them when we built. I thought we could turn them into little DIY toy people. 

They were so cute and easy to make. It was a preschool art project for him. We made them together.

If you don’t have wooden cylindrical blocks at home, you can use pieces of wood dowel or even a few square blocks glued together. You can even make DIY toy people out of toilet paper tubes. 

🌟Full details through Blog link in bio 🌟

——————————————

I am so excited and yet in complete shock by how fast these little lives grow. I have never missed moments and I am so so grateful especially as we approach the teen years in my house. 💛 Soak up even the hard days of being a mom. TOTALLY worth it. 

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She loves to read. She loves to write. Abby writes plays, journal entries, songs and on a bad day she will write her feelings about it all, in depth, no holds barred. 

This night she was trying to finish up a play - setting, character details, order of lines - for a play she made for her younger sister. 

I am so thankful that we can count her love of writing in her free time as school work. I am so thankful that how we do school allows this passion and talent to thrive. She has stacks of drawings, plays and writing blurbs. They are all precious to her.

There are days I question whether this choice or that choice is right or “approved,” but it does not matter when I see my children dive deep into the things they love. 

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Give me my people any day. Family time this Sund Give me my people any day. 

Family time this Sunday was a 5k fundraiser race. We helped raise 💵 for the spouses’ club scholarship fund. Scholarships will be awarded for post secondary education to military kids and spouses. 

If you can choose any action in life, choose to help others. Side bonus when it involves fun family time together.

Best day yet. 💛💛💛

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💛 Friday Introductions💛 It has been a while 💛 Friday Introductions💛

It has been a while since I did a good run-down here to give ya the cliffs notes (are those still a thing) version of me. 👋 

💛 Detroit-born a few blocks from where Eminem lived. The city is still my hometown despite moving away as a kid.

💛 I am a big believer in traditional values, but with a modern woman twist. My husband drives his career and I drive this household.

💛 We live in eastern NC 30 mins from the beach. I want to stay here forever, truly, but military life will come to an end some day...still don’t know specifically when that will be.

💛Born and raised to be a planner, Type A personality, having 4 kids beat that out of me 🤣 and I am very “day at a time” now. 

💛I was a teacher turned stay at home mom turned blogger turned entrepreneur that had to set it all on the back burner a bit to focus on homeschooling my kids. I can only have so much on my plate and complete it successfully. (When we listen, God guides and is loud and clear with His direction. 💛)

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💛I believe that true peace, value and love all come from Jesus. 

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👌What is the cliffs notes version of you? What do you want people to know/realize most of all?

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🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟 Often our c 🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟

Often our children learn hard lessons when they have to move to a new state or school. 

My kids have become all too familiar with this through military life. Every three years they have to make new friends.

It is not always simple.

As a child, my family moved a lot. We were not military, but in junior high I moved to a new state and had to make all new friends.

This was a challenging and even to some extent a traumatic time of life.

Being the new kid, is a humbling experience. Suddenly you are hoping that your peers will want to get to know you and like you. It creates some self-consciousness.

Reading is such a beneficial way to teach children about life lessons. It teaches much more than that. It teaches self esteem through the cuddle time. It teaches language skills, and it teaches children to use their minds to be creative.

As they have grown and navigated more friendships, books are a resource for us to discuss tough challenges. I have found a great series of books that present friendship challenges and help children learn to navigate them.

It just so happens that the author is my neighbor too! How cool is that?! Moms are amazing.

These books will be treasured by your family for their quality values. The @stingrayjelly series teach children how to make friends and navigate friendships to love others well and support them through shared similarities and recognized differences.

Author, Lauren Giannella is a military wife and my neighbor! Anna Perdue is the illustrator and also a military child. 

Read my blog post for details on each book and links to purchase through @barnesandnoble 

We love our military community and all they do to give back.

What are your favorite children’s books that teach children how to make friends or help them maneuver through tough life challenges?

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