Winter Wonderland Theme

This article forms part of our ‘Dream Theme’ series. This series is designed to save organisers of fundraising events from having to reinvent the wheel all of the time – our primary focus here at the Fundraising Directory!

Typically, you’d be looking at a colour theme of blue, white and silver for your Winter Wonderland theme event and a vast majority of the ideas that you look at will fall into that colour scheme, but you certainly don’t have to be tied to it. Lighters shade of pink and gold could work quite well too. We hope that you take some inspiration from this. eBay, Pinterest, YouTube and your local Christmas shop will become your nearest and dearest friends in planning your event.

Invitations

Winter Wonderland Event Fundraising

anything involving snow/snowmen/snowflakes
Decorate your invitations with glitter to create a snowy effect.
Cut your invitations into snowflake shapes or even some decorative craft scissors around the edges will do the trick too.
You can bedazzle your invites with sparkly rhinestones or tie them up with a blue or silver ribbon
If they are being distributed in an envelope add some sparkly snowflake table confetti

Decorations

Winter Wonderland Theme Event

There are endless ideas on Pinterest for decorations depending on your budget and/or craft skill level. Here are just a few:

Thread cotton balls onto fishing line and hang from the ceiling to create a snow effect
Buy or make your own fake snow to decorate with. There are a few different types of fake snow, and some are pre-cut to look like snow when they are hung. Others can be bunched up to look like snow drifts
Blue or white fairy lights work well. These can be purchased online or from all year round Christmas shops (in fact, these Christmas shops can be very helpful for sourcing lots of decorations for your winter wonderland theme)
You can make your own snowflakes from paper, popsicle sticks, DIY pom poms, paper doilies or even balloons.
Get yourself some glue, glitter and a whole bunch of spray snow cans and you can create some beautiful and cheap decorations using pine cones, tree branches, feathers, glass bottles/wine bottles and tea light candle holders. These can be used to make cost-effective table centrepieces.
White helium balloons with snowflakes hanging from them or a balloon archway at your entrance
White tulle and fairy lights or ribbon can be used to make a great backdrop for a photo booth
Tea light candles on tables. Use white sand to mimic snow for your candle to sit on.
White lanterns can be transformed into snowman lanterns. Just add eyes, a nose and a mouth.

Costumes

Winter Wonderland Fundraising

There’s a really wide range of costumes that can fit into this theme and the best part is that you can easily find something to fit your budget. We’ll start with the most obvious:

Snowman (and yes, this could be Olaf from Frozen)
Snow or Snowflake – Great if costumes are not your ‘thing’ cause you can keep this really simple like a snowflake mask or snowflake crown
Elsa (from Frozen)
Santa
Snow Fairy
Skier or Ski Instructor
Snow queen (think the evil queen from Narnia)
Snow Owl
Penguin
Polar Bear
A Snow dome
Jack Frost
Eskimo
Yeti

Games

Winter Wonderland Theme Event

Snowball toss – cardboard cut-out of a snowman with holes for throwing ‘snowballs’ through. Cover some foam balls in glitter for your snowballs.
Snowman bowling – dress your pins up as snowmen
Pin the carrot on the snowman or the red nose on Rudolph
Snowsuit relay – two teams and two sets of snow suits including snow pants, coats, scarves, beanies, mittens or gloves and snow boots. Each person has to put ALL clothing on and race to a point and back. Then undress and the next person does the same. The first team to complete the relay wins.
Musical snowflakes – same idea as musical chairs but decorate your chairs with snowflakes
Do you want to build a snowman? – use toilet paper and some cardboard cut-out buttons, nose, hat etc. Set a time limit and the best snowman wins.
Reindeer ring toss – Make a reindeer head from a cardboard box with sticks for antlers. Throw rings made from pipe cleaners or you could use glow sticks onto the antlers

Catering

Winter Wonderland Fundraising

Set up a hot chocolate bar. You can include extras like cinnamon, marshmallows and peppermint sticks
For the grown-ups, mulled wine, or there’s a huge range of cocktails to choose from: White Russian, Coconut Snowball martini, S’more martini, gingerbread martini and the list goes on!
White chocolate (snow) covered pretzels
White chocolate fountain
Popcorn in a snowman styled container (suggested by one of our readers)
Have your water labelled as melted snowmen
Donut holes covered in icing sugar can be Snow Balls
Gingerbread men
Decorated themed cupcakes
If you’re looking for something a bit more substantial though, get your slow cooker army together and think of the things you like to warm up with on a cold winters day – soups, casseroles and chilli or go a bit retro with a white cheese fondue!

Entertainment

Winter Wonderland Fundraising

One of our readers suggested a ‘snow globe’ photo booth – a cordoned off area with beanies, scarves, foam snowman etc and foam beans/balls. If the area can be contained, could add a fan on the ground to blow the foam balls (or cotton balls) up in the air like snow.
There is a whole range of different styles of photo booths you can set up. The easiest version only involves purchasing some props. We’ll include a few images to give you some ideas.
A cardboard or foam cut out with face holes cut out can be fun too. Snowmen, Reindeer, Santa and Mrs Claus, Elves, Mr and Mrs Yeti, Snow King and Queen, Gingerbread men. You get the idea. These can be bought online or if you’ve got someone creative in your team, maybe they could make one for you.
Another reader suggestion: We had a snow machine against a snowy backdrop (it was a Christmas winter wonderland) also make snowflakes using different textured and blue/white coloured papers, icicles made from wadding.
Your music playlist would have to include the classics: Walking in a winter wonderland, Baby it’s cold outside and Do you want to build a snowman? Some music streaming apps (like Spotify) can provide playlists based on different themes if you run a quick search. Of course, if your event is a Christmas one, then go to town with Christmas Carols.

Hopefully these will get your imagination flowing to make your winter wonderland event magical!