It’s that time of year again for spooks and ghosts and haunts galore.  It’s the perfect season for Savvy Aunties to throw a Halloween party that is fun for their nieces, nephews, their friends, and the entire family!  Given that Halloween parties are often family affairs, make sure to incorporate activities and games to match the different ages that will be attending.

A Creepy Hand Invitation:
 
Take clear rubber gloves and fill each fingertip with a gum drop.  Fill the rest of the glove with popcorn.  (The popcorn makes the hand look like it has knuckles.)  Using black and orange card stock, create an invitation card with the party details written inside.  Hole punch the card and thread orange and/or black ribbon through and attach to the glove by tying it off with the invitation card and its ribbon.  Hand-deliver these invitations to your nieces, nephews, and their friends.
 
Spooky Decor:
 
Construction Paper: Use construction paper to create ghosts, pumpkins, bats, spiders, and other spooky creatures.  Make half ghosts that peek out around corners as an example. For the pumpkins, orange paper makes the body, brown paper for the stem, green paper for the leaves, and black paper for the cutouts to make the face.

If you are using black construction paper for the bats and black cats, use chalk rather than gel pens. If you want to make the bats and ghosts fly, punch a small hole at the top of the creations, and thread a fishing line through the hole and hang over vents or near a door that is opening and closing frequently so that they "fly."

Ghost Balloons: Blow up orange and black balloons, place material, such as a small white sheet, over the balloon, tie the neck with a string, and use a black marker for a ghostly face. Suspend the ghosts using fishing line attached to the ghosts’ necks.

Spider Web: A spider web goes a long way in decorating any corner area of your home and/or front porch. They often come with some plastic spiders for further decorations.

Witch’s Cauldron: Purchase a black plastic cauldron and add dry ice and a submersible light to make it spooky.

For the older nieces and nephews:

Old Clothes: Take an old pair of jeans, plaid shirt, work gloves, shoes, and hat and a brown paper bag to create the victim of a terrible Halloween accident.  Stuff the victim with autumn leaves. The face can be the brown paper bag stuffed with the leaves and the hat pulled down over the bag to hide that there isn't a face. Place fake blood (white Karo Syrup with red food coloring.) all over the victim's wounds as well.  Either place the victim in a chair on the front porch or sitting under a tree in the front yard. 

Cardboard Boxes: Make a graveyard in your front yard by using old cardboard appliance boxes. Cut them down to tombstone size, spray paint them black, and then use white paint to outline the headstone. Using a small paint brush, paint different, spooky, funny, and anything goes epithets on the tombs. Place them in the front yard, weighing them down with a brick.
Using different sized jars, fill them with green-colored water and place “body parts” such as plastic hands, eyeballs, hair, fingers, etc. into the different jars. They will look creepy!
 Have a large punch bowl in the center with a brain ice mold floating in green slime punch.

Ghoulish!

Serve a Creepy Menu:
Take regular foods and place a small sign next to each snack with their spooky name on it.  Poof!  You have got a menu of creepy snacks to serve your nieces, nephews, and everyone:

1.    Baked Skeleton Bones (Pretzel Sticks)
2.    Bat Brains (Popcorn)
3.    Bloated Ants (Raisins) - see picture.
4.    Boiled Lady Bugs (Red Jelly Beans)
5.    Braised Beetles (Milk Duds)
6.    Candied Spider Eggs (Gum Drops)
7.    Cheesy Owl Eyes (Puffed Cheese Balls)
8.    Chocolate-Dipped Houseflies (Chocolate-Covered Raisins)
9.    Compressed Cobwebs (Chex Brand or Similar Cereal)
10.    Crumbled Bat Wings (Blue Corn Chips)
11.    Deep Fried Fingernails (Bugles Brand Snacks)
12.    Dehydrated Dragon's Wings (Doritos)
13.    Dirty Shoelaces (Black Shoestring Licorice)
14.    Dried Seaweed (Chow Mein Noodles)
15.    Earthworm Knots (Miniature Pretzel Twists)
16.    Flattened Slugs (Corn Chips)
17.    Freeze Dried Drops of Blood (Red Hot Candies)
18.    Ghost Guts (Mini Marshmallow)
19.    Goblin's Belly Button Lint Balls (M & Ms, Any Style))
20.    Plops of Pigeon Poop (Yogurt Covered Raisins)
21.    Rat Claws (Shelled Sunflower Seeds)
22.    Roasted Snack Eyes (Peanuts)
23.    Shredded Lizard Gizzards (Coconut)
24.    Splintered Turkey Bones (Shoestrings Potato Chips)
25.    Toasted Cat's Eyes (Blanched Almonds)
26.    Vulture Toenails (Candy Corn)
27.    Witches' Warts (Chocolate Chips)

Ghouls, Ghosts, and Vampires Unite and Delight in this Freaky Fun

Play Pass the Pumpkin:
Have kids sit in a circle and pass small pumpkins and gourds to music. When the music stops, whoever isn't holding a pumpkin is out!

Mummy Fun:
Break up the kids into two teams, provide several rolls of toilet paper to both teams, choose one person to mummify. The team to wrap the mummy in toilet paper the fastest wins!

Build a Scarecrow:
Divide the kids into two teams and provide old clothes, pillowcases, newspapers, and markers. Give them 20 minutes to build their scarecrow.
If older kids are attending, and you have a video camera on hand, give the kids the chance to make their own "Blair Witch" Halloween film. Give them 5 minutes to shoot the film on a Halloween topic.

Host a Halloween Candy Hunt:
Sit in a circle in the dark with only flashlights and/or glow-sticks. Begin the tale of a scary story and go around the circle with each kid adding the next portion of the story until the end of the circle has been reached.

Play Pin the Wart on the Witch:
String donuts on a clothes line, blindfold the kids and/or tie their hand behind their backs and enjoy eating the donuts off the line.

Carve pumpkins:
Older kids will love to actually carve the pumpkins, and smaller kids can either use markers to draw their faces on to small pumpkins or use various candies and frosting as glue to decorate your pumpkins.

Candy Corn Guessing Game:
Fill a large jar and have everyone take a guess at how many there are inside.

Hold a Costume Parade:
Make little ghosts using Tootsie Roll Pops, small little squares of old white sheets, some colorful string, and a black marker for the eyes. Easy and festive.

Make Spiders:
Using Styrofoam balls, black spray paint, and black pipe cleaners. Have the kids assemble the legs and attach a smaller ball as the head.

Potions to Serve Up:
Take a plastic goblet (either decorated or ask your nieces and nephews to decorate by gluing on gems.) Pour a colorful soda into the goblet, cherry or orange are great choices. Plop in a grape juice ice cube. Sprinkle in Pop Rocks (your nieces and nephews will love to hear the pop, fizzle, fizz!) and, finally, throw in a gummy snake or a marshmallow eyeball.

Serve Warm Witch’s Blood:
Bring to a boil in a saucepan: 4 c. Apple-Cranberry Juice, 2 c. OJ, 1 tsp. whole cloves, 1 Cinnamon Stick, 3-4 Allspice Berries, Sugar to taste. Simmer gently for 15 minutes. Make sure it is not too hot for the goblins. Add an orange slice for an additional decoration.

For a Halloween Favor:
Send guests home with an over-sized ghoulish cookie placed into an orange cellophane bag and tie a black tag to the cookie bag using an orange and black ribbon with a donation tag stating that a “Donation has been made in your name to X Charity.”  Festive and charitable all at once!


Photo: CHOReograPH
Republished: October 26, 2016