HALLOWEEN PARTY IDEAS
 If you want to throw a successful Halloween party you have
to consider many things. What kinds of food will you serve?
Do you want a full menu or just a bunch of snacks? What are
you going to serve to drink? How do you keep everyone busy
and keep the flow going? Well, here's a few things that I've
done over the past parties that seem to work pretty well. I
found a site that has a ton of
Halloween recipes that I've tried. They even have step
by step pictures for most of them!
Food:
I'll divide "Food" into categories. You have to decide on
how far you want to go with food, do you want a full meal or
just snacks for everyone to munch on? What will you have to
drink? Since I do have friends that are over 21, they
usually have to understand that no alcohol will be allowed
at the party since it's a mix of ages. In a couple
years that won't be a problem for me anymore.
Snacks:
Serving a bunch of different things can be a good way to
keep the treats being served all night. First, I'll set out
bowls of caramel popcorn, bowls of sweet & sour pumpkin
seeds, and a few bowls of mixed Halloween candy like candy
corn, Autumn mix and mini candy bars. An hour or so later,
I'll bring out the real food like caramel apples, cookies,
salsa and Halloween tortilla chips (orange and black from
the store). The grand finale' after the fun and games are
over is the Halloween cake!
Meals:
If I want a more sit down kind of meal, I'll cook up a
buffet so people can serve themselves and sit where they
want to. We'll make a couple
Jack-O-Lantern pizzas, you use a giant pumpkin cookie
sheet but make a pizza in it, use veggies to make the face,
it's pretty cool and always a hit! This website,
The
Pumpkin Patch, has a bunch of pumpkin based main dishes
as well as recipes for other stuff, all using pumpkin. The
Veggie and Rice Stuffed Pumpkin is a great thing to serve if
you have a lot of Vegan friends.
Drinks:
 You have to make sure and keep the drinks flowing so I
always set up a couple punch bowls and keep them filled. I
found a very cool base that you can make yourself to set a
clear punch bowl in the
Halloween Recipes section of
Halloween-Online.com. Look under
Punch Bowl Special FX. You'll find a bunch of punch
recipes there, too. I liked the tip about making ice hands
out of plastic food servers gloves using the same punch. You
freeze them and as they melt they don't water down the punch
and they keep it ice cold! Of course, keep a supply of
peoples favorite soft drinks, too and maybe some energy
drinks.
Having A Theme Party
You should also decide whether you want to have a theme for
your party or just let people come as they are, costumes
required of course! I've done a Vampire theme one year where
everyone had to come dressed as vampires. It's cool that
everyone has a different favorite vampire like LeStat or the
ones Tru Blood or Twilight so it's great to see all the
different vampires that show up. I set around a few
fishbowls full of plastic vampire teeth and tubes of fake
blood so everyone could get in character. All the punch was
red, the decorations were all black, red and Gothy. My dad
made a toe pincher coffin for me to use as a prop and
everyone took turns laying in it to scare the new arrivals.
I found some great ideas for planning a
Halloween Theme Party and it really made it easier to
have all that info in one place!
Setting the
Mood
Even if you have a plain old Halloween party, you still want
to decorate and set the mood for the night or it will flop.
I learned this the hard way when I had my very first
Halloween party. I wanted to do it all myself and you really
do need help so now my best friends lend a hand all year
long to get it ready. You need to really go all out
decorating, use lighting and fog machines, setting a sound
system up so you can play Halloween party music or some kind
of ambient noise in the background. You need to send out
invitations and have people RSVP. If you have a theme party,
let them know in the invite what they should be looking for
in a costume. I like to look at this site about
Yard
Haunts because a lot of the ideas can be used for a
backyard party, too.
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