Full Bloom Blog

Celebrating a FIRST birthday at Christmastime is sweet business!

Initially, when I found out that I was having a baby around Christmas, it made me sort of nervous for multiple reasons. I received lots of warnings from others about keeping her day separate from the rest of the holiday celebrations. While, I totally get it and agree on many fronts, I really loved doing a Christmas-baby birthday party!

As a classically trained ballerina, it seemed like an obvious choice to do a Nutcracker theme; it satisfied on so many levels! Both by personality and the fact that she was born December 22, Genevieve is definitely a little Sugar Plum.

When my mom hosts Christmas dinner at her house for the whole family, I usually host Boxing Day brunch at my house (partially because I love brunch but mostly to squeeze in one extra celebration with my family while they’re all in town). This year, we decided to turn our brunch into Genevieve’s birthday party. With digital images I created, I texted the invite to my family so as to keep it casual but make it official at the same time (similar to the one in the photo above).

One of the best things about having a birthday party during Christmastime is that everything is already decorated! To turn our house into a Sugar Plum celebration, I just added a few items mostly found at Hobby Lobby! I especially loved the raw wooden nutcrackers I purchased there – I liked a little bit if neutrality amidst the sea of pink, purple, gold, and sparkles.

I had Annabelle build a photo banner with her monthly photos with lollipop ornaments (also purchased from Hobby Lobby) in between photos. We used kitchen twine to hold it together and after the party, the printed photos will go into her baby book.

We filled in the rest of the buffet with plates of cupcakes in pink snowflake cups sitting on gold chargers, bowls of cream puffs, and platters filled with various types of macarons. One of course, was my own creation for Sugar Plum macarons (see photo below).

These highchair decorations were so simple and easy! The ribbon has wired edging, so it makes for great bow shapes and the little Nutcracker sticker in the middle brought it all together. I love how her tray looked with two of these little cuties!

I had a lot of fun making her smash cake! I made a traditional white cake (with reduced sugar) and a whipped mascarpone frosting (also with very little sugar) and topped it with edible white flowers, pink macaron shells, fresh raspberries, and then dusted the whole thing with powdered sugar and edible glitter. It might be one of my favorite cakes I’ve done to date. The best part was that Genevieve enjoyed every part of the cake – she sampled it all!

Genevieve is OBSESSED with pop up books! I had the idea to order her a Nutcracker book and have all our guests sign first-birthday-wishes inside! I found this particular one on Amazon and purchased it without seeing any of the inside pages. After some order drama, it arrived right on time, and I was MORE than happy with this selection! While the story is not exactly on point (no pun intended) the pop ups and illustrations are gorgeous! I expect to have lots of snuggle story times with this book for years to come. Even if you’re not doing a Nutcracker theme, I highly recommend selecting a special book to have guests sign for every birthday party!

One more treasure I found at Hobby Lobby also happened to be in their Christmas decor. I hung this puff banner up near the pop-up book table and plan to hang it in her room later. It was a win-win purchase as far as I’m concerned!

We did a fairly traditional brunch menu for our crew. We made three different types of quiches, hashbrowns, bagels with cream cheese and lox, and a generous fruit platter. For beverages, we had mimosas with a couple different types of juice (or just plain juice for the kiddos) and a coffee and cocoa bar! I had purchased disposable clear plastic teacups on Amazon as well as my favorite to-go white paper coffee cups. They worked great and I loved not having to use Styrofoam or wash cups for days afterwards. And of course, pink and white, and gold paper straws make it a true party.

It was a wonderful celebration for my sweet little ONE and I’m so grateful to all of our family who came (and helped) to make it the great day that it was. And I’ve got to be honest – I might just keep the Nutcracker theme for her second birthday, too. Wouldn’t she be TUTU cute?! I have never-ending ballet puns so I’ll stop before I get carried away.

**None of the businesses or companies named above have sponsored or provided any compensation or incentives for anything used or said in this post. These are just my personal opinions and experiences. If you would like links or more information about items used, please feel free to drop me a message or comment below!