Planing a Halloween party?

I took the plunge this year and finally agreed to have a party after 12 years of trying not to. It was the heart strings that did it. This is the last year my youngest will be with her particular set of friends and I felt like it was now or never so a I took the pluge.

We scoured the internet to steal ideas for food and games and the following is what we came up with:

DECORATIONS

I went to B&M bargains and Aldi and bought lots of Halloween tat including 60 metres of cobweb which was excellent value for money and very difficult to get off my hands. Most of the decorations were cute. Some of them (including the blood splatters) were gruesome. My OH said it was like the undead had invaded a kids Halloween party.

GAMES

Ring donuts on strings were hung from the ceiling

The girls had to eat one with their hands behind their backs. It was much more entertaining than the half an hour before the party when my eldest, dedicated to the idea of using 12 slip knots to attach them ensuring different heights of the guests were considered, realised that actually, what a surprise, it was quite a hard way of doing it.

Witch’s Eye

I think this is traditionally called Napoleon’s Eye. Essentially I told the girls I’d killed a witch and put her body parts in cups to hand round in the dark. They all squealed and then guessed what they were at the end. At least two kids worked out that the beetles were actually (specifically) Canellini beans – the mind boggles.

Dried apricot – tongue

Olives – eyeballs (I think peeled grapes would have been batter

Noodle – Intestines/Veins

Courgette skin – skin

Popcorn kernels (raw) – teeth

Twiglets – finger bones

Canellini beans – bugs

Broccoli  – brain (I think cooked cauliflower would have been better but I was in a hurry!)

Caspar the Ghost Flour Game

I turned out a bowl packed with flour onto a tray and placed two large black buttons for eyes. They had to cut away some of the flour with a spoon. If the eyes moved they had to remove them with their teeth. One girl lost on purpose. Ugh.

Spider racing

Straws and small paper spiders were blown along a race track (the floor). The girls had to have their hands behind their backs. Very fast game so we had to have a number of races.

Spider Tig

We spent forever using up old stickers drawing small spiders on them. Each girls was given  five stickers and had to stick them on each others backs. The ones with the most lost. Some children stood next to a wall so I had to add extra rules in. This one kept them busy for ages.

Ghost Game

Everyone stands in a space with their eyes shut and one person is a ghost. They move around behind people and select one to stand behind counting down from 10 on their fingers. If they do this without the person shouting ghost they also become a ghost. If they call out ghost they move on. If a player shouts ghost when there’s no-one there they also become a ghost. You need a lot of space for this but it worked well.

We didn’t do apple bobbing because I thought it would wash the hideous face paint off, and we didn’t get round to murder in the dark, or toilet paper mummy race. We also totally forgot to do pin the face on the pumpkin because we were having so much fun. We did have Halloween songs and a bit of a disco.

FOOD

I went simple and party healthy but doing stuffed jacket skins and Quorn nuggets, along wit

 

h some Halloween themed food:

Graveyard trifle (Tesco recipe). It looked amazing and tasted vile (even the kids thought so).

Fruit pumpkin face – despite being healthy this all disappeared!

Cheese straw snakes.

Mouldy popcoron (covered in melted green coloured white chocolate – difficult to make and revolting

Witches fingers (Carrot sticks).

Franken feet – another Tesco recipe with Madelaines covered in green icing with raisins for nails. Funny and edible so that was a win.

 

TRICK OR TREATING

After the second house we decided 15 people was a bit mob sized for trick or treating so split up. I love the way the UK has made Halloween our own. The kids say trick or treat respectfully (and quietly if a toddler answers the door), thank you and even “Happy Halloween” as they go down the drive

Only houses with decorations are visited so everyone is happy and no-one feels intimidated. We saw loads of friends from school, and lone parents who’d been left in to hand out sweets while the other supervises the activity. Houses are decorated – some with a great sense of fun. there were some amazing pumpkins (including these – not ours!)

One woman opened the door after we heard her ask Alexa to play spooky music. Epic effort towards haunted house authenticity.

Honestly the whole thing was a joy, but I’m not doing it again next year…