Grinch-mas Party

To get full use out of our Grinch costume purchase, we had a Grinch float in the Prestonsburg Christmas Parade and a Grinch-mas Party at the library.

(Quote on wall from last year's Grinch bulletin board!)

I wanted to have room for patrons to be able to watch "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" (the cartoon version), so we only had 3 other activities, in addition to cookies and popcorn.

Our first craft was a Grinch ornament. This idea came from Bullock's Buzz. Guests could fill a plastic ornament with the green paper crinkles and then stick on the Grinch's face.

I used our Cricut to cut out Grinch faces on adhesive vinyl. Patrons then had to peel and stick onto the ornament.

Because it was so small, this was a little difficult. But I didn't think turning them loose with some transfer tape would be a great idea, and the challenge certainly didn't slow anybody down at all. The slightly wonky faces on the ornaments actually turned out pretty cute.

This fun science experiment idea came from Creative Family Fun. They drew hearts on green balloons, but I found some heart-shaped balloons online that I thought would be fun.

The balloons needed to be blown up larger than this science experiment did in order to really create a good heart shape, but whatever. Work with me, here.

This was kind of a mess, as you can imagine, and some of the experiments went a little haywire. But, all in all, it was a hit and I quickly ran out of materials to keep doing it.

A lot of the kids had done similar experiments in school, so they were already familiar, but I had a little explanation made up to go on the table.

There was also a Grinch paper bag puppet craft.

I cut the hair shape out of cardstock, and I made the Grinch face stencil with the Cricut. I wish I had more of the thin Crayola markers, but I didn't, so we used Sharpies. I was nervous about it, but it went without incident. Christmas miracle. The green bags I found at Dollar Tree. The other green bags I looked at in Walmart or Hobby Lobby were gift bags and were kind of slick, which wasn't what I wanted with the marker. The cheap Dollar Tree ones were paper and perfect.

I came up with the paper bag puppets because I couldn't find a good Grinch craft that was appropriate for this event on Pinterest. My first attempt was the above, where I cut out the individual pieces on the Cricut. That turned into too much to be able to have the stuff for 40 puppets, so I simplified. I was also surprised to see so little in the way of a Cindy Lou Who craft. I ran out of time/space to use her as a craft for this event, but I have the template for her here.

For refreshments, we had Grinch cookies and cupcakes. The mini cupcakes were purchased at Food City, but I made the heart cookies.

They're sugar cookies with a cherry Jolly Rancher melted in the middle. I got the recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything, which I follow on Facebook and just happened to see. Perfect timing.

We also had popcorn and Green Apple Kool-Aid, served from our Grinch'ed up beverage dispenser.

I found the green striped banner at Hobby Lobby, and cut out the letters in red with the Grinched font.

I decorated with some help from out poster printer, and with our Who houses from the float.

I had six of these sprinkled around the room.

And our entrance, with a fantastic Grinch balloon I found on Amazon.