It is that time of year again, and everyone is gearing up for the big game. In anticipation of Super Bowl Sunday, it’s a great time to throw a party and include your nieces and nephews!

They may or may not understand football, but they certainly understand the fun and excitement of the big game. And, oh boy, if you are lucky enough to have a football-crazy nephew with a late January or early February birthday, you may also want to celebrate his special day with this party.

Decorate
To decorate, throw football confetti on the party table and around the room. If you have any football “stuff” in your home, such as jerseys, knee pads, shoulder pads or other memorabilia, put it out as well.

Arrange your party area and furniture to accommodate all of your guests. This is an especially good time to set up a separate area for kids, if possible. You can decorate the kids’ table with a football tablecloth and a balloon tied to each chair, perhaps in the color scheme of the teams playing, or the team you are favoring!

Keep Them  Busy
When your guests arrive, hand out a safety pin for each person to wear and make “football” the quiet word. When someone says “football,” the person who catches him collects his safety pin. The person who has the most safety pins at the end of the game wins!

Assign a party referee—an older niece or nephew may love to play this role. Have him wear a referee shirt and throw a yellow flag for the following offenses:

Party Foul: Double dipping anything!
Holding: Holding on to food for too long!
Illegal use of hands or language

Have the kids make their own paper footballs. Buy brown construction paper, black markers and finger paint kits for decorating their balls.

Play a round of Football Pictionary and definitely include the kids. Some of the words teams may want to draw include cheerleaders, penalty, helmet, pass, bleachers, fans, safety and touchdown.

Have the kids break open a football piñata. You can fill it with trading cards, whistles, bubble
gum and stickers, so they goodies to take home.

If you have two TVs in your home, arrange one for non-football viewing. Even kids with good attention spans can find the pre- and post-game shows and all the hoopla of the big game a little too long.

What To Serve
Serve a great party food menu and make sure to rename each item to fit the party’s theme:

Nachos (Touchdown Tortillas)
Hot Dogs (Holding Hot Dogs)
Cheese Munchies (Defense Doodles)

Other foods to serve include a large pot of chili with breadsticks, veggie platters with dips and cheese platters with crackers and relish side dish.

For dessert, make a batch of brownies and cut them out with football-shaped cookie cutters.
Here’s to the best team winning and your nieces and nephews really whooping it up for the big game!

Lisa Kothari is the founder of pepperspollywogs.com.