Ahoy There! It's a Pirate Baby Shower!

Celebrate life's newest treasure with a pirate baby shower. This fun, rollicking baby shower theme is great for couples or family baby showers where everyone can play dress-up leave reality behind for a few hours.

Get your mateys together with a treasure map where X marks the spot where the pirate baby shower will be. Make a hand-drawn rendition of your city map and mark the spot with a red X. Have the map copied and roll it up either in an empty bottle with some sand in it or like a scroll tied up with a black ribbon. Remember to distress the paper before you send it out. Ask your guests to come in full pirate gear – finding the treasure depends on it!

Decorate the party area like a deserted island. Have lots of palm trees around and hang a few fish nets up instead of streamers. You can light up the fish nets with fairy lights if you like. Green and brown “coconut” balloons can be bunched up to add more interest. Hang pirate flags around the room and have an empty “treasure chest” (a painted cardboard box) to put the baby gifts in as they arrive. Hang some “jewels” on the chest and accent it with coconut balloons and artificial sea creatures. Change your light bulbs to a yellowish tone to simulate that tropical glow.

Have plain wooden tables or cover them with black tablecloths and center a small treasure chest in the middle. Fill them with gold-toned flowers and gold chocolate coins. Throw in a few “jewels” if you like. Scatter more jewels and coins on the table. Surround the pirate baby shower arrangement with lots of tea lights in amber glasses to make it glow. Use gold or silver plates and metallic tableware to complement them.

Set your buffet table a little more simply. Have the same wood or black theme going and serve the food on metal platters. Scatter more gold coins and bead necklaces around the platters.

Simple food is best for the pirate baby shower: Roast chicken and pork chunks on skewers, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, grilled vegetable skewers, and a rich stew make great pirate food. A tropical fruit salad with coconut, papaya, mango, and banana chunks with orange segments would be just right for dessert. As a beverage, red wine or red grape juice and mead or sweet white wine would be perfect beverages for this meal, as would beer.

You must have a cake! Such simple food calls for a rich pastry dessert like a chocolate truffle cake or a vanilla pudding cake with mixed berry filling. Form it into a treasure chest and decorate with gold chocolate coins. String fake jewels around the platter as an accent and elevate the cake to make it a terrific highlight for your buffet table.

And the pirate baby shower favors should be bags of chocolate coins and gold dusted body powder. Wrapped up in a burlap bag, this is a terrific ending to this unusual celebration.