Planning Your Halloween Party

By October 31st the dark nights are getting longer and cooler, and it’s easier to imagine another world of Halloween spirits, walking dead, werewolves, vampires and hobgoblins. You may be one of the many hosts planning to invite your friends dressed as these strange creatures into your home that evening for a Halloween costume party.

Perhaps you will be arranging a Halloween costume party this year, and thinking about good Halloween ideas.

First, think who your guests will be. Your whole approach will be different for children or adults. A children’s party will be earlier, and the entertainment and decorations less frightening. It helps to have a kids party checklist. Adults will expect different music, food and drinks, and party for longer.

Once you have your guest list, and have chosen a suitable date, time and place, you are ready to prepare your Halloween theme invitations. This is a fun thing to do. Part of the attraction of Halloween is the variety of ghostly themes. Your invitation should be novel, colorful and scary, but be sensitive about doing things like including imitation body parts to fall out of the envelope. Not everyone will see that as a joke. You should tell your guests if they are expected to wear Halloween costumes. Don’t forget to include a request for confirmation so you know how many guests to cater for.

Halloween decorations inside and out can take time to set up but make the evening more memorable. A cemetery scene with tombstones is a great idea, with subdued lighting, images of ghosts and ghouls, hairy spiders and their webs, sound effects and perhaps even a fog machine. Halloween is about Jack-o-lanterns made out of pumpkins with a candle inside. You will need to make quite a few, in different sizes, to help set the atmosphere.

With all that pumpkin flesh left over from carving your pumpkins, your party menu might include pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie. Halloween themes have their place in your choice of food to serve. However, following the horror theme and going overboard with Halloween decorations when laying out your table can detract from the pleasure and fun your guests will have at your party. Instead focus on food with a Halloween theme to make for a memorable party.

You will need to decide whether you will be serving a full dinner or just finger food. A sit down dinner or a buffet? The meal can be a good time to distribute party favors, especially if your party bag includes jokes, games or other things that will stimulate conversation.

Whether to buy, hire or make your Halloween costumes needs to be planned well in advance. Inviting your guests to wear costumes is a great way to get your guests into a party mood, to get conversations started and to get people laughing, but you need to tell them early enough. Going a step further and having your guest wear masks is a traditional way of making your guests less self conscious, and to quickly break the ice. It helps if you can learn how to face paint especially to make up children with Halloween face painting designs.

Halloween music and sound effects should be used to help set the atmosphere as part of the party entertainment, but at some point your older guests will likely want to dance to the latest hits. Making up a compilation of music specially for the evening on your computer can be fun. You might like to show short or full horror movies in the entertainment.

Party games and spooky Halloween themed entertainment adds to the good times. A good organizer and some prizes help to get everyone participating.