Gingerbread Christmas Party Ideas: The Table, the Garland, the Giant Gingerbread Man and the Biscuits

A gingerbread Christmas party is the one that smells right. It is also the easiest Christmas theme to do with children, because half of it is an activity: you decorate a gingerbread house, you ice a biscuit, you eat the evidence. This year there is gingerbread tableware from Meri Meri and My Mind's Eye, a gingerbread house garland from Hootyballoo for a fiver, and a sitting gingerbread man balloon that children hug. Here is the whole party, from the plates to the party bags. 🍪

The gingerbread Christmas party table 🏠

Two plates to choose from. The Meri Meri Gingerbread House Christmas Party Plates x 8 are a kraft-brown house with pastel icing and a pink door, and they are the ones for a party that is more pink than red. My Mind's Eye's Gingerbread House Christmas Party Plates x 8 are the traditional version, white icing on brown, with the Gingerbread Man Christmas Party Napkins x 24 to match. Either way, put them on a red and white striped cloth or a plain kraft one, and let the gingerbread do the talking.

Gingerbread Christmas party decorations 🎀

The Gingerbread Christmas Party Garland from Meri Meri is gingerbread men, hearts and candy canes with little ribbon bows, and it is the one for over the table. Hootyballoo's Gingerbread House Garland - 2m is a row of card houses for the mantelpiece, and at £5.99 you can buy two and run it the length of the room. Then the balloon: Party Deco's Sitting Gingerbread Man Foil Balloon is a giant gingerbread man who sits on the floor with his legs out, no helium needed, and every child who comes in will sit next to him.

The gingerbread Christmas party activity 🧁

This is the bit that makes the theme work: the food is the game. Bake or buy a tray of plain biscuits (the Gold Star Cookie Cutters x 3 make three sizes of star), put out icing in bags and bowls of sweets, and let them go. For the cupcakes, the Festive House Christmas Cupcake Kit x 24 is twenty-four cases and little gingerbread house toppers, so even the undecorated ones look finished. If you want the full gingerbread house without the structural engineering, the Gingerbread Sticker Advent Calendar builds a card house, a truck and trees out of stickers over December, and a party in the first week is a very good reason to start it.

Gingerbread Christmas party games that need nothing 🎲

Run, run, as fast as you can: a gingerbread man chase in the garden with one child as the fox is twenty minutes gone. Indoors, pin the button on the gingerbread man works with any drawing of one and a packet of round stickers, and a gingerbread house building race with graham crackers and icing keeps a table of eight year olds silent for longer than anything else we know. Musical statues to Christmas songs finishes it.

Gingerbread Christmas party bags 🎁

The party bag is the biscuit they decorated, wrapped in a square of greaseproof paper and tied with ribbon. Add a sheet of the Gingerbread Stickers x 50 Sheets (fifty sheets, so one box does every party bag this Christmas and most of next), a Gingerbread Temporary Tattoos sheet and a candy cane, and it is done for under £2 a child. The Pop-Up Gingerbread Scene Christmas Card is the thank-you card afterwards, if you are that organised.

A gingerbread Christmas party crosses straight into Christmas Eve, too: the same plates do Santa's mince pie, and the gingerbread man balloon sits at the end of the table for Christmas Eve tea. We covered that in the Christmas Eve box post.

Shop the gingerbread Christmas party 🛒

Everything is in our Gingerbread Christmas collection, with the rest of the children's Christmas in Meri Meri Christmas. Free UK delivery over £40 and next-day delivery on everything in stock.