Pippi Longstocking was my first book hero. Oh, how much I wanted those freckles, red braids and drawers full of small treasures! Not to forget the monkey and the horse. Once, after reading the book for the fiftieth times, I began to write a sequel to the story, but lost the notebook after completing one page. Already an adult, I happened to be in Stockholm for half a day. Do you know what the first stop on my list was? Without doubt, Astrid Lindgren’s museum. In a way, Pippi Longstocking has always stayed my hero, for her magnificent talent of creating fun and games out of ordinary things. Do you remember how she made pepparkakor on the kitchen’s floor? Went to look for treasures and found an old tin? Had a tea party on top of the tree? If you have not had a chance to read the book, it is a great fun!

In July Family Dinner Book Club is reading Pippi Longstocking, and I am joining them for this month. Each month a new title is announced, and on the 15th of the month three blog authors offer their ideas on how to organize a family dinner and discussion of the book. Jodie from Growing Book by Book is sharing conversation topics, and Sarah from Daisy at Home is offering a selection of recipes. I have come up with a few ideas on how to make simple decorations for a Pippi Longstocking dinner.

 

Invitation

Do you remember that Pippi hosted a dinner as well? It was her Birthday.

One day Tommy and Annika found a letter in their mailbox. It was addressed to TMMY and ANIKA, and when they opened it they found a card which read: TMMY AND ANIKA ARE INVITED TO PIPPI’S TOMORO TO HER BERTHDAY PARTY. DRES: WARE WATEVER YOU LIKE.

– Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Quoting Pippi’s text, I created this little invitation card. Save the archive with printables at the end of this post and deliver the invitation to all the guests at your dinner table. Even if all of them live in the same house and know when to come for dinner, it is surprisingly fun to have a special invitation, left by the pillow. If you think that your children might be up for it, they can correct the mistakes in Pippi’s writing. I admit I did back then when I was eight.

 

Cards

 Tommy said, “When Mamma and Papa have a party, the gentlemen always get cards telling them what ladies to take in to dinner. I think we ought to have cards too.”

– Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

So they did! We will follow their example and make these cards as well. In case you have an uneven number of ladies and gentleman in your household, the children have already come up with a solution. Tommy was taking Pippi, and Mr. Nilsson was taking Annika. Well… he did not really, but Annika kindly carried him to the table.

We, on the other hand, had two gentlemen, so Budster took his doll in to dinner. If you have pets let them join as well!

Save the archive with printables at the end of this post and fill the blanks on the cards or write your own text.

Placemats

I once saw a Chinese in Shanghai. His ears were so big that he could use them for a cape. When it rained, he just crawled in under his ears and was as warm and snug as you please. Of course, his ears didn’t have it so good. If it was very bad weather, he used to invite his friends to camp under his ears.There they sat and sang sad songs while the rain poured down.

– Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Pippi is full of stories of how things are done in the lands far off. In Guatemala they sleep with heads under blankets and toes out, and in Argentina a child is sent to stand in the corner if he happens to know any arithmetic, while in Egypt people walk backwards. How does Pippi know? She travelled around the world with her Papa, the captain, and their crew.

The placemats have a map on them, so that we could follow Pippi’s adventures on the map. I love studying maps. Don’t you? Remember what countries Pippi mentioned and find them on the maps. If you feel competitive, make a contest of it: who can remember and mark most on their maps.

Also, find Pippi’s homeland – Sweden – as well. If you got to the third book about Pippi’s adventures, Pippi in the South Seas, make guesses on where the seas described in the books were and chart her journey from Sweden to the South Seas on the map.

Where have you been on the map? Where would you like to go?

Flags

Pippi might not have known how to spell very well and did not respect the arithmetic studies, but I suspect that she knew naval flag signalling. The International Code of Signals has flags for all the letters and numbers of the alphabet, and each of the flags has an additional meaning. Print all the flags as well as a legend and send messages to each other across the dinner table as if you were ships separated by the ocean. 

For making flags I used bamboo skewers and some white glue (Weldbond is my favourite). It was a quick and fun project. Being fond of codes and ships, I always felt intrigued by the naval flags, and I am happy to have a set now. Download the archive with printables at the end of this post for making your own flags.

To practice my new knowledge of the naval flags, I made a garland to hang above the table. I printed all the necessary letters and glued them to a string in the same fashion as I did flags. Can you read what the garland says? Budster sure loved this little addition to our garden.

 

Centre Piece

For special occasions we like decorating a cake to put in the centre of our table. So I made a carrot cake – it is one of our favourites, and it rather suits the colour of Pippi’s hair. Then I covered it with white fondant, and having made egg whites royal icing, I painted an abstract blue design. I added seashells for decorations and, using a hobby knife, cut silhouettes of Pippi and Mr. Nilsson out of stiff paper. The silhouettes are included into the archive with printables as well.

 

 

Other Details

Bring out other sea-themed decorations to the table! Let the seashells scatter on the table, and let a lantern glow as the soft summer twilight settles in. Have spyglasses ready, and if you have a trunk full of gold pieces, do not forget it either.

There is another little decoration I added to our table. A small bottle with several peas in it. If your children have read the whole trilogy about Pippi, they will know what it means. If not, it might spark their curiosity.

Pippi hunted through closets and drawers and after a while she produced something that looked like three peas.
“Peas!” said Tommy surprised.
“That’s what you think,” said Pippi.”These are no peas. They are chililug pills and were given to me in Rio by an old Indian chief when I happened to mention that I wasn’t wild about the idea of growing up.”

– Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren

As a child, parting with Pippi at the end of the book, I always said her spell against becoming a “boring grown-up” and hoped that even if I do not have her chililug pills, it will somehow work. There are times when I think that it did not, but as we sat down to have our Pippi’s dinner and my husband signalled the first message to me across the table, I thought that in some way it did work.

I want to take a moment to thank my husband for supporting this dinner idea. He did not read Astrid Lindgren’s books as a child, but since we met, around Christmas I usually buy him one and for a few weeks read to him before bed. We both enjoy it very much. His favourite book is Emil’s Clever Pig, a book I got for him on the first Christmas we spent together.

To set up your own Pippi Longstocking’s dinner, please, download this archive with printables. Inside you will find the templates for making invitations, cards, all the naval flags and a legend for them, world map placemats and silhouettes of Pippi and Mr. Nilsson. I hope you will have a lovely time, and I will be happy to see your photos!

if you want to stay updated on other stories from Adventure in a Box, consider subscribing to our Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram pages. Thank you for reading!