Want to make the Olympic Opening Ceremonies exciting for kids? Host a simple party focused on delicious food! Get easy ideas for Olympic ring-colored snacks, treats from the host country, simple decor, and fun traditions that create lasting memories—no fancy decorations required. Simple ideas for a fun Olympic Opening Ceremonies party. Simple food to eat while watching the opening ceremonies.
The Olympic opening ceremonies can be long and at times, seem dull to children. You can make it more exciting by throwing a party. You can just do it with your little family or invite some guests.
I love this opportunity to broaden the vision of my children and try to help them grasp how large the world really is.
I love finding fun ideas online! Pinterest is a great way to find fabulous ideas. I love scrolling through Instagram to see what my friends and other people are up to. I love being inspired by them all.
There are some things, however, that just aren’t me. I have fully accepted that without guilt. I am not a person who likes to spend money creating cute decorations that will be used for one party.
Not my thing! I don’t feel bad about that. It doesn’t bother me at all if other people do that. I think they are lovely when I see them and the photos online are beautiful. Still not me.
So for something like an Olympics viewing party for the Opening Ceremonies at the Olympic games, I am happy to go simple. I focus on the food.
Post Contents
Olympic Opening Ceremonies Party Food
There are a few areas I focus on for creating fords for our Olympic themed party.
I like to do simple foods that can represent the Olympic rings. So I am looking for food that is blue, black, red, yellow, and green.
I also like to have some foods that are from the country or city where the Olympic games are being hosted at the time.
Then I will make a couple of snacks that represent a sport or two in that games. Our favorite for the summer Olympics is blue jello with licorice lane lines and little teddy graham swimmers.
Here are some simple food ideas:
- Bowls or Plates of Food: In the photo above, you can see that I simply filled some bowls with foods that are the color of each Olympic ring. For this spread, I did blueberries, OREOS, strawberries, Ritz crackers and cheese, and pickles. You can also do grapes, blackberries, watermelon, pineapple, cookies…sit and ponder a bit and think of things you can serve. I like to go with what is on sale, so different fruits and veggies will be available depending on the time of year. I also like to mix up sweet and savory foods for a variety.
- Cupcakes: It is very simple to bake a bunch of cupcakes, frost them blue, black, red, yellow, and green and display them in the Olympic rings. Just divide the frosting into five bowls and dye each bowl in one of the five colors.
- Torches: You can have foods that represent torches, such as an ice cream cone if it is the summer olympics (and you live in the Northern Hemishere), or you could even do Snow Cream Ice Cream Cones for the winter olympics.
- Colored Candies: Colored candies are your friend. For the last Olympic games, I used M&Ms and arranged them in Olympic rings on top of Rice Krispie treats. Easy.
- Something from the Host Country: I love to make something that represents the home country. This is simple to find through some Google and Pinterest searching.
- Other Favorite Ethnic Foods: You can also do foods from all over the world to celebrate the many different countries competing in the games. For example, back when the games were in Brazil, we had Brazillian lemonade. Now we can’t do an opening ceremonies party without Brazilian lemonade.
You can follow my Pinterest Olympics Board to see what ideas I am finding and liking. There are a lot more ideas out there, including fun decorations and games, that I have pinned but haven’t actually tried.
Italian Food Ideas
This winter, the Winter Olympics will be in Italy! So this year, we are planning on Italian food. As I mentioned, I try to incorporate some foods that are from the host country into our opening ceremony party. We will also try to have some food from that country for dinner or dessert over the course of the Olympic games. Here are ideas I have had for our opening ceremonies party:
- Italian Sodas
- Antipasto bites
- Focaccia bread
- Bruschetta
- Garlic bread
- Cannoli
- Caprese salad
- Pizza
- Stuffed mushrooms
- Caesar salad
- Caprese bites
- Zeppole
- Panna Cotta
- Gelato
- Italian Ice
This post contains affiliate links, which will not increase your price but will share commission with me
Italian Soda Recipe
We love Italian Soda at our house! It is so simple to make and a super fun addition to your party.
Ingredients:
- Seltzer water, chilled (this is our preference, but you might prefer club soda or sparkling water. Club soda has a salty or metallic flavor to it, so we don’t use that option. Seltzer water is usually cheaper than sparkling water)
- Flavored syrup (we use Torani)
- Crushed ice (or pebbled if you have it)
- 1 Tablespoon Heavy cream or half and half
Instructions:
- Ahead of time, put your seltzer water in the fridge. This isn’t necessary, but it tastes better
- Fill a 16-ounce glass with as much ice as you would like. Somewhere around halfway
- Add your flavoring. We use 6-8 pumps of the syrup, depending on how much flavor you want. This is about 2 ounces or 4 Tablespoons (get a pump for your Torani Syrup here–just make sure the pump works for your size of syrup bottle)
- Add your seltzer water to your glass. Leave a little room at the top for some heavy cream
- Add heavy cream, stir, and enjoy! Note that if you don’t have cream, you can skip it or you can put whipped cream on top
Syrup Flavors:
I love so many different flavors. If you are looking for a more authentic, traditional flavor, I would go for an Amaretto if you like almond flavoring. You can also go fruity with something like orange and vanilla syrups mixed or a raspberry peach mix.
If you don’t care about “traditional,” choose a flavor you will love. Vanilla is a good, basic crowd pleaser. Many in our family love caramel. My favorites are Irish Cream or Amaretto.
If you are wondering if you can even use up an entire Torani bottle, use them for hot chocolate flavoring, too! You can also use them to flavor plain Greek yogurt bowls.
Blue Food Ideas
Some general blue food ideas include:
- blueberries
- blue juice
- blue Jell-O
- pretzles dipped in white chocolate dyed blue
- blue candy
- blue macaroons
- blue popcorn (popcorn with white chocolate dyed blue)
Black Food Ideas
Some general black food ideas include:
- Oreos
- blackberries
- olives
- grapes
- black beans
- chocolate donut holes
- black licorice
- cheat the color a bit and do dark chocolate or dark grape juice
Red Food Ideas
Some general red food ideas include:
- strawberries
- watermelon
- raspberries
- apples
- cranberries
- red cabbage
- tomatoes
- red Jell-O
- red velvet cake
- red candy
- salsa
- red peppers
- licorice
Yellow Food Ideas
Some general yellow food ideas include:
- crackers
- cheese
- pineapple
- yellow carrots
- yellow peppers
- lemons
- potatoes
- corn
- pasta
- lemon drops
- eggs
- macaroni and cheese
- bananas
- chips
Green Food Ideas
Some general green food ideas include:
- pickles
- lettuce
- spinach or other greens
- peas
- green beans
- green peppers
- avocado
- broccoli
- grapes
- celery
- kiwi
You can also buy a bag of sour patch kids and get a bunch of the colors from that.
Olympic Party Decorations
You can take it up a notch and still keep it simple. We like to use crepe paper and balloons to make things festive but still inexpensive. We made a crepe paper background with the Olympic ring colors and then cut out the rings from construction paper (see image above).
You can also put up world flags or hold little flags. You could print pictures or even buy some inexpensive banners on Amazon. This one has 200 countries. This one is less expensive with only 50 countries.
Or you can go handheld with these flags.
Medal Count Fun
The Olympic Games last a couple of weeks. This gives you plenty of time to get use out of the decorations and food ideas. You can keep the fun going by keeping a medal count or doing something fun when medals are won.
You can create a poster board and graph the medals won by your home country, your favorite athlete, and/or other countries you are keeping an eye on.
You could also have a special treat you eat whenever your favorites win a medal, like a yellow Oreo anytime a gold medal is won.
Conclusion
In the end, I am going for memories and fun with my family. This is a fun way to celebrate. If you love spending time and money on decorations for a party, go for it! If you don’t, do not feel bad about it!
After our first time doing this, my kids still talked about the last opening ceremonies several times a month. They loved it, as simple as it was, and look forward to the games next week!
What do you do for the opening ceremonies? I would love to hear it!
Related Posts
- Fun Games for the Whole Family
- Preserving Family Time
- Top 18 Games for Family Game Night
- 8 Great Family Activities (and why you should put effort into doing them)
French Food Ideas
In 2024, the summer games were in Paris, France. French food is known for being delicious! When Nate, Brayden, and I went to France a several years ago, trying the food was definitely a highlight.
Here are some ideas of foods to use at a party with French food party.
- Macaroons. These come in many colors, so you can easily use them in your rings. Costco actually sells macaroons that are quite good.
- Pastries (puff pastry would be great for yellow)
- Meats
- Cheese
- Charcuterie board
- Baguettes
- Pistachio. Pistachio is often used in French desserts, so it makes a great green option.
- Creme Brule
- Croissants
- Chicken Cordon Bleu
- French Onion Soup
- Croque Monsieur
- Crepes
- Millefeuille (DELICIOUS dessert if it is made right)
- Eclairs
- Fruit tart
This post originally appeared on this blog in February 2018
