Purim Theme Ideas - Toy Soldier

The weather fluctuation has been so unpredictable these days.  First Sunday, it was really cold, then Monday we warmed up to plus temperatures, only to be frozen on Tuesday with a windshield of -28C (-18F).  Now, today, in the forecast is 3C (which is 38C - pretty warm for us here in Montreal, this season), and Friday we are expecting 10C! (That's 50F).  Although I love the warm weather, I have a sneaky suspicion that we are going to have a lot of colds this weekend as the kids think they don't have to bundle up as much as they go out.

Back to Purim, the time machine is going to 2007.  My kids dressed up as toy soldiers that year.  The costumes were sewn, and time consuming, but you can make a very similar effect by using a blue turtle neck and white pants.

I bought thin silver ribbon, which I sewed on the front.  2 long strips going down, and 4 smaller strips connecting the 2 longer ones.  I sewed on silver buttons at each place were the 2 strips meet (8 buttons in all).  For the pants I used thicker blue ribbon, which I sewed down the length of the pants on the outer leg.
As I mentioned before, these costumes were sewn from scratch, both the shirt and the pants, but you can adapt them to clothes you might already have in the house.
The hats were made out of cardboard, and as you can see in the picture, didn't really hold up so well as it got to the end of the day.
My Meshloach Mones that year was unrelated to my kids costume. (can you believe it?)  I gave out  homemade babka cake made in those really neat paper bundt pans from Novacart.  Their products really spruce up any cake you want to give out as a gift and they come in many different shapes abs sizes.  They are so easy to use, because you give the cake in the same container it was served.  I bought mine in Houseware Plus on Park Ave in Montreal, but I know they are available in most nice kitchen supplies stores, for example Peppermill in Boro Park.  In each I placed a coffee mug in the center (the bottom of the mug fit perfectly in the hole).  I filled the mug with coffee candies, and torino chocolates.  The whole basket was wrapped in cellophane paper and tied with a brown ribbon.
The babka recipe I use, is delicious.  I got the recipe from my neighbor, and I will post it one day very soon.
Please feel free to post your Purim ideas in the comments below.

Chanie