A Blessed Christmas Baby Shower

What a beautiful time to have a baby – Christmas! And with everything during this holiday season geared towards children, gratitude, and happiness, it's the perfect time to have a Christmas baby shower.

Where to start on the invitations? There are so many themes that are appropriate for babies – the Nativity, angels, Santa, candy, Babes in Toyland... the best way is to pick a theme that appeals to you and to take your cue for the rest of the party from that. Let's say you pick Christmas candy as the theme for your Christmas baby shower. A commercially available plain red or white invitation will do for this, embellished with a wrapped candy cane or striped peppermint round glued onto the cover of the invitation and the whole thing tied shut with a red and white striped or polka-dotted ribbon.

The decorations in the room will then be based on the red and white candy theme. Using all the red and white Christmas decorations you can get your hands on, fill every corner of the room that you can. Any empty flat space is fair game. For example, on the side of a small table, you can arrange a small village of white houses on a cloud of white cotton, with the surface of the cotton sprinkled liberally with white and silver glitter and a smattering of red glitter. Or, vases filled with lady or gala apples are used to hold down red and white carnations. You can even choose plain white serving dishes for your food and put them down on a woven tablecloth of red and white ribbons.

The tables can be decorated with stacked cake stands piled with red and white candy (Christmas comes but once a year, after all) and each plate topped with a large red-and-white striped lollipop tied with a red and white ribbon. Little votive candles in red and white are scattered along the table. Small arrangements of red and white carnations are interspersed with the candles. Even the pure white napkins are tied up with the red and white ribbon bows.

You could serve the same food as with your traditional dinner for the Christmas baby shower: turkey, roast beef, or ham, mashed potatoes, vegetable side dishes and maybe a Christmas pudding. Or, you could tweak the food a bit and serve miniature turkey, roast beef and ham sandwiches with an assortment of vegetables and dips, eggnog, and baby pumpkin pies. Gingerbread men decorated like babies are a fun touch.

There are a lot of fun games to play during the Christmas baby shower. One is Christmas trivia on little-known facts about Christmas. Another game is Christmas Carol Chaos, which is like Pictionary but all the guesses are only the names of Christmas carols. There are many traditional games that can be found on the internet. Don't hesitate to adopt a foreign custom if you think it would be fun. For example, piñatas are normally part of the festivities on Christmas Eve. There is no one that would object to having a piñata at any party.

Some Christmas baby shower prizes and favors could be a cinnamon or bayberry scented candle, Christmas cookie cutters, Christmas tree ornaments, small bags of chocolates, Christmas M&m's, or gourmet popcorn. A favor that ties into the Christmas candy theme would be little parchment or cellophane bags filled with peppermints and tied up with a jaunty red and white bow.

Blessings and best wishes on your Christmas baby shower!