Have a Ball with a Basketball Baby Shower

So, the mommy-to-be and the daddy-to-be are huge basketball fans. They're the type that go and shoot hoops to settle and argument and know the stats of every team on the NBA. Just what do you do with such wonderful fanatics as these? Celebrate their obsession and throw them a basketball baby shower!

For you invitation, copy an authentic basketball game ticket but write down your own details instead of the game place, time, and date. Have a tear-off stub on one side of the ticket and use that for a lottery throughout the baby shower. Be sure to let the guests write down their names as they come in and drop it into an opaque container that you'll use to draw lots.

Decorate the party area in their favorite team colors or remain neutral by using the NBA colors of orange, purple, red, and blue. Pay homage to the cheerleaders by making flower pomanders or tissue balls in various hues of orange to hang throughout the room. Use crepe or tissue paper flowers to decorate the rooms. You can fringe the flowers so they look like pompoms or furl them out to simulate basketballs. Lots of balloons, streamers, and confetti add to the celebratory mood. A really easy highlight is to hang a basketball pinata in the middle of the room. Filled with candies and power bars, it's a pinata with a difference.

Decorate each table differently by choosing a different colored tablecloth for each one and varying the centerpieces. Use goldfish bowl to hold vibrantly hued flowers like gerberas and tint the water a deep orange. Scatter little baseball shaped chocolates around the arrangement to add interest to the table. Use orange plates if you dare and white ones otherwise. Tie orange and purple ribbons around the napkins in a simple knot.

Cover your buffet table with a plain cloth and use 12” x 12” linoleum squares that look like hardwood floors as a topper. Use serving platters in your color scheme to hold the food. Scatter confetti around the platters to make it look more festive. As a centerpiece, hang several large floral pomanders and orange Chinese paper lanterns above the table in different orange hues. Use ribbons of purple, red, and blue to suspend them from the ceiling.

Concession food is the best for this – serve a hotdog bar for everyone to make their own hotdogs. You can even print instructions as to how the dogs can be made. For example, a Coney Island Dog is just pure mustard, a Chicago Dog has yellow mustard, sweet green pickle relish, chopped onion, tomato wedges, and a dill pickle spear, in that order. Southern style Dogs are topped with spicy brown mustard and broccoli coleslaw. And everyone's favorite chili dog is topped with thick chili, chopped onion, sliced black olives, grated cheddar cheese, and crumbled taco chips. Serve with a choice of potato and green salad, soda or beer, and basketball cupcakes for dessert with scoops of ice cream.

A fun keepsake for this basketball baby shower is to get a memory book covered in orange basketball material. Have the guests sign it and write down their wishes or bits of advice for the new family. Make sure to leave some pages for the parents-to-be to stick in pictures of the baby shower, the birth, and the new baby.

The favors for this basketball baby shower could be a basketball fan care package of a plastic water bottle filled with chocolate basketballs, a cheerphone, and a power bar packed into a black mesh bag.