Help needed for childrens party

[Deeps2025]

Hi everyone,
I’m hosting my kids' Frozen-themed party tomorrow at the village hall from 2:30 to 4:30 PM. We have around 18 kids attending, plus their parents, and there's also an entertainer booked.
Originally, I had arranged kids’ snack boxes and a buffet for the parents, but the food provider has just backed out. It's too late to order supermarket platters now, and I'm feeling really overwhelmed—this is my first time hosting a kids’ party.
Could anyone please suggest how I can manage the food in just one day? Any easy, quick ideas for both kids and adults would be so helpful. Thank you so much!

Order pizza or takeaways

I literally said 'as a parent I didn't expect food.'

Obviously you have to provide snacks for kids. Also timing is context of party was 12/1-3. That's lunch time so implication is lunch should be provided. OPs is after lunch/ before dinner.

In the 70s and 80s, our parents would push the sofa aside, line up some cassettes, wrap up a pass the parcel and make sandwiches with sausages on sticks. If you outsource everything to the point where you can't cope with going to the shop to get bread, ham, cheese, carrots, cucumber, crisps and biscuits, with a whole day to go, then I despair really.

Kids are much less bothered by the food than you are.

easiest solution (not necessarily cheapest) is to buy some multi pack crisps (and mini cheddars) and some multipack bags of biscuits (party rings/chocolate fingers etc). Sausage rolls and/or cocktail sausages (served cold). Juice cartons or wee bottles. Breadsticks. Can cut up some grapes, apples, carrots if you like. Or offer some whole apples, satsumas. Then the birthday cake. Just ensure you have some veggie alternatives and stuff for any dietary requirements.

Parents don't need to be fed. You can easily make the bags yourself. Just make some little sandwhiches, buy those little bags of mini cookies/jammie dodgers/party rings, and some multi bags of crisps. Chuck in a fruit shoot or water bottle in each bag too.

Your afternoon timings massively help that it’s not over lunch. I never expect to be fed, grown ups definitely don’t worry about (nice soft drink/biscuit at most). They definitely will be understanding if you shared how things have fallen through.

I always make my own food first thing on the morning of a party. The children often pick and don’t eat a great deal anyway. Keep it kid-friendly and simple:

• Sandwiches: ham/jam/cheese. Allow 1/2 sandwich per child.
• Crisps
• Breadsticks
• Cheess straws
• Cucumber batons
• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrot batons
• Pepper strips
• Cocktail sausages
• Sausage rolls
• Mini Scotch eggs
• Party rings
• Strawberries
• Halved grapes
• Blueberries
• Jug of squash
• Jug of water

You could simplify that list further (less salad/savoury/fruit options).

Main prep is therefore making the sandwiches and chopping up veg and fruit. I had more than enough time to do this for a party of 12 starting at midday, again your start time will massively help.

Make up party bags, wrap presents, do as much else in advance of the actual day to fully focus on food prep that morning.

Good luck!

This! Is there a domino's near? Kids love that for parties. Don't worry about parents, they won't expect to be fed.
Is there a pound shop near you? Get goodies and make up Party bags.

For a the kids make up cheese, ham and jam sandwiches, (not all together) mixture of white and soft brown bread, cut into triangles put onto trays or foil platters (available in the plastic cup section of larger supermarkets) cover with cling film.

mini sausages (ready cooked) mini sausage rolls and mini cheese and onion rolls (bake in oven kind, Iceland is your friend here), tubs of cherry tomatoes, cut up cucumber and carrots into sticks and pots of hummus, cut up pittas into triangles. Potato rings and cheese puffs in large bowls. For sweet stuff id serve party rings, Jaffa cakes and if you feel like it, basic iced fairy cakes with sprinkles (can buy in Lidl ready made but not as nice as home made). Simple, takes under an hour for prep.

for adults id get a selection of cheeses, a few types cheese biscuits, couple of chutneys and red and white grapes. They can also eat the leftover kids food remember!

nobody expects quality at a kids party so hitting the supermarket is just fine. I would be able to get most of this in Lidl though id need Iceland or large Tesco for the sausage rolls and I know Asda has the foil platters or rather did 3 weeks ago

It's 18 kids. Really that's not a massive task.

Buy a couple of loaves of bread and do some ham and some cheese sandwiches. Place them on clean trays or some foil party platters.

Get a few big bags of crisps and put them in bowls.

Buy some party cakes/biscuits.

Slice up a cucumber in an attempt to look like you are being health conscious. Place them by a pot of hummus if you want to.

Get some individual cartons of juice or bottles of water. I usually used a marker pen to put the kids' names on the drink bottle otherwise they have 2 sips and forget which is there's.

1 hour preparation time at the absolute most. Possibly less. You can buy everything today ready for tomorrow.

It's an afternoon party not at a meal time so there's really no pressure.

Tea and coffee for the parents (if there's the facilities to get boiling water) and a few packets of nice biscuits will sort the adults out.

have you got a local cafe or leisure centre or similar that does kids lunch boxes and might sell you some of the boxes? If the kids are fairly young (which i'm assuming they are if it's a frozen theme) then i think it's a lot easier to make them up a portion of food each than having plates and bowls for them to pick from......a basic sandwich (ham, cheese or jam) on white bread, a pack of crisps, a couple of cocktail sausages or mini sausage rolls, some cucumber sticks, a sweet snack and some fruit.
The parents don't need a buffet mid-afternoon!

I wouldn’t expect a buffet as a parent so ditch that, if you can manage teas and coffees and a pack of biscuits that would be nice but even that’s not essential.

@OutandAboutMum1821’s list is really good I think. I find the fruit always gets eaten with young kids, crisps, sandwiches, maybe some cheese, veg sticks. Jugs of squash and water.

But it’s middle of the afternoon so you don’t need to feeding them a full meal and honestly they won’t probably eat that much anyway, there’s always so much food waste when we go to parties. Parents can hoover up leftovers!

But yours finished at 1500, so it was over lunch (and I would expect food over lunch). The OP’s starts at 1430 and finishes at 1630, so everyone would have had lunch and the children will be having their dinner only a couple of hours after. I think light snacks are fine, they’ll be running around playing, then touching all the food with their grubby hands and putting it back again - so definitely don’t over cater!!

Order dominoes and get multi packs of crisps and haribo from the supermarket and big plastic jugs for water/squash

To go against the grain, I think a cup of coffee and a biscuit is always appreciated by parents. I assume the village hall has a kettle so just take some instant coffee, a few tea bags and some milk and buy a bogstandard tin of biscuits. Minimal effort and cost.

I agree with others about the children, ham or cheese sandwiches, Pom bears, cucumber stick and maybe some watermelon or something. Definitely doesn’t have to be fancy!

Honestly kids party food can be quite simple.

I'd do cheese and ham sandwiches, bread sticks, carrot sticks, crisps and fairy cakes. You'll get all those on a quite trip round the supermarket.

Do not attempt to make sandwiches. that way lies madness and upset.

If you can afford it, order pizza in.

Option 2 that we always found worked very well was hot dogs. Plain frankfurters don't need to be cooked you can just leave htem in hot water for a few minutes so work well if you don't have proper facilities. Then packets of crisps, some biscuits to pass round. Fruit skewers are a faff but hilariously popular so if you want something healthy, that's a good option to add.

Snack boxes are good as they're likely to mean you won't over-cater. If you have the boxes use them. Each child will need a sandwich, a drink, crisps or biscuits and a frube or raisins (maybe sweets if older).

Adults shouldn't expect food but you could get some crisps and sausage rolls.

If there's a sandwich shop near you, you could possibly get them to do sandwiches but kids sandwiches tend to be plain cheese / ham / tuna which js relatively easy but I can see why your overwhelmed.

for really easy.. crockpot hotdogs. put them all in standing up, do not add water. Cook on high for 2.5 hrs before party, then switch to keep warm for 2-3 hours. Hot dog buns, condiments, crisps went down very well at my grandson's party as a throw together , the woman who was supposed to supply the food, was admitted to hospital the night before party.

Fruit shoots for drinks or just make up squash and have water
Party rings and similar biscuits plus crisps/pom bears in small bags so can easily dish out to each child
Fruit and veg - apples, carrots, strawberries, cucumber
Sausage rolls, breadsticks, houmous, maybe sandwiches and I agree if you can heat up food pizza is a great plan
Assuming you can easily get to a big supermarket this should all be fairly easy and cheaper than ready made snack boxes

I have done snack bags for the last several parties as I aim for a similar timing so I can avoid dealing with lunch.

I get paper party bags at Sainsburys or whatever and pop in a fruit shoot, string cheese, some sort of meat snack whatever, crisps (ideally ready salted for everyone to avoid the arguing!), wee pack of party rings or oreos or jammie dodgers (or more than 1 if I manage to get to aldi for the cheap dupe option!), some sort of chocolate something like a kit kat, some sort of sweet and a clementine to make myself feel better. I do cupcakes with the singing and hand them round and that's the end of that. They all bring the bags home with them as everything lasts ages so they can share it out at home if they don't like something.

I have never been to a kids party without food, whatever the time. It's never just crisps, fruit and cake

And I've never given parents anything but it's all dropoff and has been for years here - think everyone started dropoff at 5?

You’ve not been to one of my parties 😜 It’s becoming more common at my kids school, I stopped providing sandwiches etc for mid-afternoon parties when I realised they were barely being touched - I wouldn’t feed my kids a sandwich between meals so don’t see the point of doing it just because it’s a party. Never had any negative feedback (to my face anyway!)

Order pizzas and bring multi packs of crisps and bowls of fruit. Bring packs of cookies and bags of crisps for the adults.

Food always gives everyone a chance to sit down (and calm down)
I would offer a simple pared down menu of:
Ham sandwich
Cheese sandwich
Jam sandwich
Allow half a sandwich max per child.
Cut up baguette (not everyone eats sandwiches)
Carrot sticks
Cucumber slices
Multi pack crisps
Sliced up watermelon and strawberries
You could offer some biscuits
I wouldn't bother with hummus or bits of cheese. Tasty but likely to go to waste
There's enough calories to pep them up but not get too full/feel sick
It doesn't have to be a full meal
Tea, coffee, squash and biscuits for parents
Cake in bags at end to signify the party is over and it's time to go now.