Last night we had a a birthday/Christmas party for 3 families in our neighborhood. They are all from Owen’s kindergarten, and the 3 moms are studying English with me right now. It was fun because all 4 families have a child with a December birthday, so we made it a combined Chistmas/Birthday party.

The kids had a great time playing together, and it was great to meet the dads/husbands and get to know them all as families. Owen and his close friend from school, Sousuke had a great time running around playing laser tag (with Annie right behind).

I made Christmas tree cupcakes that turned out to be a cake with lots of Christmas trees on it. They were really fun to make (the original idea came from Martha Stewart – hers were all white trees. I made my green with sprinkles for the kids to enjoy more). Here are some simple directions if you need a fun Christmas cake idea:

First buy some ice cream cones…
Make up cake batter…
Take a disposable pie pan, make xs in it with a knife, put pie pan on top of a deep cake dish, and gently push cones through it. Line the inside of each cone with parchment paper. Then pour batter about 2/3s full into each cone. Bake until cake is firm (about 20 minutes or so). Remove from cones and let cool.
If you want to make each tree into an individual cupcake, make some smaller-size cupcakes (using silver cupcake tins) at the same time.

After the cones cool, decorate the cones like christmas tree (I used green icing and small candies). I then stuck them on the end of chopsticks which were in styrofoam to let them dry.

I ended up not making them into cupcakes, but just putting each christmas tree cake on a white iced round cake. (OK- so when I was putting them together they kept leaning! So I went with the cake plan).
It was fun to watch the kids try and eat these VERY green trees…the last photo is Owen and Sousuke cracking up at each others’ green mouths…We all laughed a lot last night — a good time for building friendships.