Princess Day

Two years ago, there was a provincial election here in Ontario. During the campaign, the incumbent premiere, Dalton McGuinty promised that if he were to be reelected he would instate a provincial holiday in February called Family Day. As soon as he won the election, the date for the first Family Day was set.

This year, Claire's school made a big deal over Family Day. They did a whole unit on families and did crafts related to the event. So, as would be expected, one day Claire asked me about the holiday and what it entailed. I think she was expecting some big hoo haw like Santa at Christmas or the Easter Bunny at Easter or Valentine's cards or something...ANYTHING. DH lost one of his regular holidays to Family Day so I'm not a huge fan of the occasion. Hence, I might have been a little biased when I educated her about the day. I remember telling her that Family Day wasn't particularily special because it was a made-up holiday when people were supposed to spend time with their families.

At that point, she got sort of quiet and I could see her wheels turning but she didn't really say anything. But she kept asking about family day, even when it was over, and after a while I understood that the reason she kept asking was to hear the part about how it was a "made-up day". So, I wasn't all that surprised when one day she announced that she thought there should be another holiday in the year called "Princess Day". I wasn't sure how much she had fleshed out this idea so I asked her what was going to happen on Princess Day. Wow - did I get an earful. In a nutshell, Princess Day was to be a day where little girls had to wear fancy dresses and crowns and have their friends over to eat cookies shaped like princess stuff. She had thought so much about it that I didn't want to crush her spirit by telling her that she couldn't just make up holidays so I told her that maybe someday in the summer we could have Princess Day, thinking she'd forget.

Yeah....I was completely nuts to think the child would forget about her plans to change society with Princess Day. Once in a while she'd approach me with "Mommy, do you remember about Princess Day?". I'd assure her that I did and someday we'd try and do it. I had some vague ideas of how to make it happen for her and decided that maybe I'd make cookies some day in the summer and have her friends over to play and maybe that would be enough. I'm not a girlie, girl, pink princess sort of person so this was going to be a stretch.

Then one day, a couple of months ago, I went into Michael's and nearly tripped over a display of stuff to have a princess birthday party. Included in this display was a set of cookie cutters in a box shaped like a book. Eight cutters for a shoe, a wand, a crown, a horse, a princess, a ring, a carriage and a castle. It was pricey and so I left it there but I didn't forget.

More recently, I went to Michael's again and they had all the princess stuff on sale. I was already thinking of buying the cookie cutters and having the holiday because the summer has been dragging its sorry self along through heat and tornadoes and allergens galore. The sale tag was all I needed to spring into action. I called a friend with two little girls and made a date to have a holiday this Wednesday past.

Hosting a holiday takes a heck of a lot of work. I wanted to make it a big enough deal to keep four little girls (and one little boy) occupied for the better part of an afternoon. I warned the other mom that I would give them a healthy snack, but after that we were going to have to wallow around in a pit of refined sugar. I wanted the whole day to be cute and special and I did the best I could:

I made coloured chocolate lollipops shaped like hearts and roses:

The mothers ate the big lollipops (we deserve treats too!).

I spent the better part of Tuesday baking and decorating princess-themed cookies:

I couldn't bring myself to make horses or carriages or caricatures of princesses in gowns but I did have fun with the other shapes. It is hard to tell from the photo but the yellow and pink icings were Wilton Sparkle Gel and the girls thought that was cooooooool. I also recommend the Wilton Cookie Icing. It made some aspects of my job a lot speedier (No, I'm not affiliated with Wilton in any way but I do like their stuff).

I took the girls' little table and chairs set out onto the patio and set it with my fancy Battenburg lace tablecloth. It was a wedding present that I love but have never used. What the heck - may as well have a little fun with the thing. I also went to our local Goodwill shop and picked up some fancy cups, saucers and plates to set the table ($3.50 it cost me!). We even had an unexpected guest:

Yup, that's a frog prince! He has velcro on his hands and feet and the girls kept dancing with him. It was cute.

By mid-morning, Claire was nearly out of her skin nagging for Princess Day to begin. She thought the festivities should begin as soon as her eyes opened and end as she lay her head on her pillow that night. Mama ain't got that sort of energy, kid. So, I gave them baths with pink water (Crayola Bath Dropz) and bubbles and then we went outdoors for pedicures.

I bought that footbath when I was pregnant with Claire because I had reallllly sensitive feet and the only way I could get to sleep at night was to soak them in the hottest water I could handle with the massage action on bust. It lay dormant in my closet from then till Princess Day.

Then the friends arrived in their finest dress-up clothes (at that point my kids wanted to change into their dress up gowns instead of 'real' dresses) and we started the party. Claire served everyone chocolate milk from teh teapot while they ate blueberries and strawberries with cream:

Can't you almost feel the concentration?

My girls never get to drink out of cups with handles (or even cups that aren't plastic) so they felt quite grown up. Jillian was hilarious. She would bury her face in her cup, slurp out milk, lower her cup, swallow and then go "ahhhh" as if that was a posh, princessy thing to do:

Gulp, swallow, ahhhh. Her milk mustache was fantastic.

They ate two cookies each and then got to make necklaces with their names on them:

The big girls had more fun with that than the little ones but they did it quite independently and the other mom and I got to talk like adults while they strung beads.

All too soon it was time for their friends to go home. Claire didn't really feel ready to stop eating junk so I handed out ring pops with strict orders for them to eat them at the table and not move till I scrubbed them off:


All in all it was a fantastic day and one that we will remember for a long time. Heck, if Mr. McGuinty can make up holidays - why can't we!?