Polar Express Birthday Party

My son loves trains. LOVES them. Since his birthday is so close to Christmas, we decided to do a Polar Express themed birthday party. As I quickly learned, Polar Express isn't quite as popular as it was even a few years ago. It was really difficult trying to find anything related to the movie or book. I did some research on google and Pinterest to find ideas, but I wanted to post what we did in case there's anyone else out there having trouble with ideas. First, I printed out these letters to Santa (find them here) for the kids. I thought it'd be fun for them to do in between presents and cake (and a great keepsake for mom & dad too!)

Next, I made chocolate covered marshmallow spoons for the hot chocolate. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark the site that I got the tutorial from, but these are pretty easy. Take a regular plastic spoon, pour any kind of melted chocolate you like (milk, semi-sweet, dark or white) into dip in spoon, add marshmallow. Let sit overnight until firm. Next, dip entire spoon into melted chocolate and decorate as desired.

I did some semi-sweet (my favorite) and some white chocolate (for relatives that have a cocoa allergy) and alternated between Christmas-style sprinkles and crushed candy canes. These were a huge hit with kids and adults alike.

I also made bell ornaments as party favors for the kids. My mother-in-law had tons of silver bells, I created the tag saying " The bell still rings for all who truly believe" in Photoshop, added some extra jute I had lying around to hold everything together and viola!

And of course, don't forget the cake. Everyone (my son most importantly) l-o-v-e-d this cake. I found an image online and knew this is what we had to have. Brandi at Sweet Treats made this for us and she did wonderful. I almost didn't want to cut it, but I'm glad I did- it was delish!