My 7-year-old will be dressed as the Mandalorian on Christmas Day.
Yep. And my teenager will probably be dressed as Elton John.
(not pictured, the totally rad cardboard piano that he made to carry with him.)
Me? Powder blue tuxedo onesie Pj’s – coffee and Baileys in hand.
We call this, ‘business whimsical’
Why? Because like most of you, I’ve had more than enough upset this year.
I’m ready for some joy, even if I have to make it myself.
I’m finding catharsis through responding strangely to everyday stuff in order to cope with this monster year. Adding Halloween to our Christmas is just the right amount of self-inflicted chaos for me to feel some sort of control.
And, Jack The Pumpkin King would be proud. 🎃🎄💀
(Side perk about the costume thing, my kids are so excited about ‘dressing up’ for Christmas that they aren’t thinking about missing our traditional snow-trip.)
Another spot where I’m shoving joy into is my frustration with our family’s tighter budget this year (relatable much?). I am not going to let this upset me when I’m figuring out presents for them.
Now, I’m not saying I’m going to just shut my eyes and click add-to-cart, no.
I am going to just pull some tricks from yet another holiday (Easter!) to make less feel like more.
To extend that ‘we-get-to-open-our-presents’ joy in a year when there will be fewer gifts, I’m going to hide smaller gifts all over the house.
They’ll find out about my elaborate scavenger hunt in a letter from Santa that will give them the first clue.
I’m also going to throw in some family cocoa breaks 🙂 ☕️
The other part of the holidays that will look wildly different for us is our Christmas dinner. Instead of being stressed out while trying to cook alllllll the things, I’m putting my foot down. I refuse to take on that stress.
Instead, we’re having breakfast for dinner.
And my kids are STOKED about it. Even more than I am about not having to do anything but throw frozen waffles into the toaster and scramble some eggs.
I might even throw in some green dye, because chaos ❤️, to see if they catch the Green Eggs and Ham reference.
If you want to try some of these ideas to lower your own stress level, this children’s-entertainer-turned-mom doesn’t want you to have to brainstorm HOW to put together a scavenger hunt 4 days before Christmas, so I’ve done it for you:
Woah. It’s is embarrassing to admit this, but I only JUST now made an obvious connection that I’ve been missing for 12 years.
This year has been really hard on our house (I know I’m not alone here on this). Every room has been taken over by toys. Mess. Chaos.
*screams into unfolded laundry pile*
(this isn’t my kid, but man they must have had so much fun messing up that room for the photoshoot!)
Now that we’re stuck inside again, I needed a way to solve this, or I was going to move into the attic till spring.
The answer just hit me.
During shows, I’ve always used parachutes to wrangle children into tidy piles (hey, it’s fun)…
so…
maybe I can do the same thing with their *toys*!
I tested it before writing this (to make sure it didn’t just feel like MORE work), and it totally checks out.
I threw a sheet down in the living room in the morning, and at the end of the day, we all grabbed a corner and ‘wrapped up’ the room. It took less than a minute.
I felt so stoked (and stupid for not thinking about this sooner). 😂
And there was a bonus that I didn’t even see coming.
The next morning, my kids knew where their favorite toys were (in the sheet) and I didn’t lose 20 minutes searching for ‘Peter Venkman’s’ lego head in the couch cushions. (Yes…this has happened. More than once.)
But wait…THERE’S MORE!
I found some other ways to use this magical sheet idea:
My 2 young kids sometimes (and I’m being generous with the word ‘sometimes’) struggle with sharing. So, I tried throwing down 2 twin sheets instead of just one to see if having personal play spaces would cut down on some of their bickering (because as much as I love wearing noise-canceling headphones while I sip my morning coffee – they’re not a cute permanent accessory).
It worked.
Both kids liked having their own sheet so much that I barely heard from them AT ALL for hours.
By the end of the day, they had added a couple more sheets above them to make each space their own ‘fort’, and I listened to them making surprisingly calm peace treaties (I mean ‘sharing toys without fighting’) as well. It was…omg, so needed.
I know that it was the novelty that probably drove the success of this, so I thought a bit about how to drag it out. I ended up ordering 2 smaller versions of the parachutes that we bring to children’s parties so they could each have one (and it would feel a little more exciting than a sheet). It’s been a solid week of success with this so far.
You’ve probably been through a LOT since starting your entertainment career, and after this year, I know we are all feeling exhausted and helpless because of all the ups and downs.
To combat the feeling of helplessness, I truly believe that if entertainers come together to help one another, especially now, we will become strong enough to survive all these curveballs.
So, I want to tip my cards so you don’t have to repeat some of the bigger mistakes I’ve made while building my company from just me to a staff of 50.
In this interview by The Variety Podcast, John Abrams pinned me down long enough to capture a full hour of easy to understand help for you.
You’ll hear how to:
~ Choose a social media platform
~ Find your audience (when they’re not at your show!)
~ Clear up your messaging (do this or drown)
~ ‘Pivot’ to virtual entertainment
Please share it with your entertainer friends. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me anytime at fae@happilyeverlaughter.com.
Your party + rain + kids = omg it actually wasn’t that bad!
Moving your party indoors can be stressful. Especially if your house isn’t designed for 20 children to run wild through it.
Now I’m imagining a house with built-in slides and trampolines between couches. #goals
OK. Back to reality.
Here’s the thing. As a children’s entertainer, I’ve seen some crazy stuff that families have tried to pull off to keep wiggly children from tearing apart their houses.
Some were absolute disasters.
Some were just ok.
And then there the great ideas that still stand out in my mind, 2,000 parties later.
Literally. 2,000. (I’ve sung happy birthday that many times. I slay at the harmony part.)
But, before I share those great ideas with you, I get to tell you about a couple of disaster ideas because DRAMA is FUN.
Once, I went to a party as a Mermaid, and as a party activity, the family had the big idea to let all the children build fish bowls. Cue water and broken glass and rocks and sadness everywhere.
And then, as a party favor, bring a live fish home in it.
You. Should. Have. Seen. The. Parents. Faces. When. They. Came. To. Pick. Up. Their. Kids. One by one, absolute shock at the sight of their new family pet.
And the same question over and over…’how are we going to take that home…?!’. Yeah, that was a wild one.
Ok, this next one actually falls into both categories. It was AWESOME and AWFUL.
This family planned on having their party outside, but then the water dumped all week from the sky so they had to kill that idea. The problem was…their house was under construction. Like, no drywall on some of the walls. This family ran with it. They gave all the children hammers when they arrived and had them knock down one of the walls they wanted to remove.
Contrary to what you’re imagining, no, no one got hurt. Phew. But man…that poor dining room wall. It didn’t see those 20 kids coming.
Extra points for when the rain stopped and all the children took photos with me in the bulldozer that was in their front yard. I was in a very pink, very fluffy princess gown, and it was unforgettable.
So, now that you know what NOT to do with kids inside, here are my top 5 favorite things for kids to do at indoor parties:
The invitation asked all the guests to bring empty cardboard boxes. That’s it. No gifts, no food. Just empty boxes. And this was back before Amazon so I can’t imagine how rad this would be to pull off now!
Each parent was handed a giant roll of tape and a pair of scissors, and the children were handed crayons. While the parents built (it was hilarioussssss to see them get so creative!), the children colored in the windows, doors, and gorgeous scribbly wall accents. ❤️
By the end, this party had built a castle that was so elaborate that the family left it up for their children to play with for days afterward. Not only is that one rockin’ birthday gift for them, but the rain didn’t let up so they never ran out of indoor playtime ideas!
Shameless self-promotion here. Here’s the thing. Hiring a kids entertainer to keep the children busy for you is just so easy. You don’t have to do anything. They walk in. The children are stoked. The pictures are adorable. And you get to drink wine. Bam.
But here is when *not* to hire an entertainer for an indoor party…don’t do it if you have too many other activities you’re trying to pull off at the same time. Trying to compete with Frozen playing on TV, gingerbread house candy being consumed, and a rented rack of kids’ costumes being ransacked is a bad, bad idea. Ask me how I know this. I’m still trying to forget that one.
A few years ago, I knocked on the door of the party I was hired for, and when the mom answered the door, she asked me to ‘crawl through the cave of sparkles’. They had turned their entire house into an obstacle course, and that was the start of it (a few sheets draped over chairs with a disco ball/flashlight set up inside).
The children waiting for me on the other side had expressions that looked pretty much like that picture up there. Every single time a parent popped out the other side, they melted into giggles.
The hallways had pool noodles to jump over, and the kitchen had pieces of fabric (icebergs) for the children to scoot across the ‘slippery ice pond’. I bet they didn’t even spend a dime to make it all. It was absolutely brilliant.
Shameless plug number 2. If you like this idea but don’t want to lift a finger, our entertainers can bring indoor obstacle courses and lead the children through it for you. I know. I’m so good at this marketing thing. *laugh*
Cheap crafts that turn into an interactive show? 100% winner, every single time. And pro-tip, if you use paper bags as the base of each puppet, you don’t have to sit by each kid helping them cut out their designs.
Ask each guest to bring any craft item they have around their house (no buying anything new!) to get an extra fun spread of silly noses, ears, and accessories for your new theater troupe.
Or, to stick with my theme here, don’t do anything. Just sit back and let a pro entertain them with a puppet show. Gosh, I wonder where I can find one of those…OH HERE!
Freeze Dance. A.k.a. ‘The easiest way to have fun with children while doing barely anything except laughing.’
My favorite thing about freeze dance is that both younger and older children really enjoy it. The younger children like to get moving, while the older children like to show off their moves for their friends.
Well. Kidding. ACTUALLY my favorite thing is when I lead this activity at parties, the number of children who try to get ‘out’ on purpose so they can hang out with me instead. Yeah. That is my favorite.
Fun twist, have the children do specific types of dance while they are moving. Ballet, tango, leaps, twirls, and pirate dancing! I don’t know what pirate dancing is, but every time I say it the weirdest things happen, so I throw it in every time. Kids trying to dance like planks are funnier than cat memes.
‘But Fae, can you just lead Freeze Dance for me so I can just relax at the party?’
Beyond leaving a treat for a tooth, what does it mean to be a ‘good’ Tooth Fairy?
Can someone actually be a ‘bad’ Tooth Fairy?
The handy thing about being a children’s entertainer here at Happily Ever Laughter is that we’ve overheard thousands of stories from children about their Tooth Fairy experiences, and all of them, are 100% positive. 🙂
How is this success rate so high? Even when parents are forgetting to have money on hand, or forgetting their child even lost the tooth? Doesn’t that make them upset?
Nah.
The best thing about your child’s ‘Tooth Fairy days’ is that they are happening when their imagination is at it’s strongest. Anything you do to create your family’s Tooth Fairy story only nurtures that imagination.
Here.
I’ll show you an example:
The other day I was tucking my 2 children in for bed (6 & 8 years old) and they both looked at me very seriously and asked,
“Mama. Are YOU going to be our Tooth Fairy?”
My brain thought quickly, ‘does this mean they don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy’?, and, ‘should I just tell them there isn’t one’?
I decided to be incredibly honest.
“Yup. It will be me. There are a ton of us. It’s a big job.”
“YESSSSS!!!!!!!!”, they both cried.
Yeah.
That for real went down. They were actually stoked that their mom was their Tooth Fairy.
I left their room and overheard them whispering about how small I’d get, or what kind of treats I’d leave. Their imagination ran wild.
Now, I know my kids only asked me that because they know I run a company of Professional Faeries. They’ve seen me put on the costume and go to birthday parties every week.
(Try explaining to your kid why you get to go to parties every day but they don’t. That’s some real magic right there.)
The point is that my kids inserted their own magic on top of my very honest answer. I said I’d leave the treats, and they imagined me doing it 3 inches tall. #winning
If you do go this route, you can still have fun staying on the honesty train while pumping up their imagination by answering follow up questions with answers like this:
Them: “Do you change sizes when you are a Tooth Fairy?”
You: “You know, I haven’t actually looked at myself in the mirror when I’m your Tooth Fairy so I don’t really know!”
You’ll be surprised at how children actually take this honesty extremely positively and still consider it ‘magical’.
Ok, this is cute and all, but what if things don’t go according to plan?
What if they KNOW you are their Tooth Fairy and then you FORGET to grab their tooth?< Or worse. They don’t tell you. Just to ‘test’ you to see if you’re really the Tooth Fairy. It’s cool. Remember how you told them there are ‘lots’ of Tooth Fairies? I’m about to set you up for some serious success here. *high five* Just play them a real video of a Tooth Fairy.
No, you don’t have to get into costume and figure out how to run a film studio.
We did that for you.
One IwishIcouldtakeitback day here at the ‘Faerie Office’ (our headquarters here in Santa Cruz, CA, where we do all of our bookings and costume creation), I said –
