Missy Blog

A Halloween spooktacular, ghoulish gathering or frightful fiesta – call it what you want. I call it fun! Throw a Halloween get together with your friends that is creative, scary and a total blast.  

First, invite all of your friends to come in costume. Make you invitations look like tombstones. Set it up something like this:
 

Here Lies an Invitation to

(Your Name)’s Spooktacular

10/31/06 8PM – Midnight

Come in Costume

If you dare.

The ghouls are out

So BEWARE!

You will also need to have decorations, food, music and games.  Decorating is fun and easy. Start with black and orange balloons. They are inexpensive and lively and when one gets popped, it can really scare the heck out of someone. Dim the lights to create a dark, mysterious atmosphere. Place candles safely out of reach of people and decorations, preferable in a hurricane lamp. Buy some fake cobwebs from your local craft store. This time a year you can even find webbing at your drug store or supermarket. String the cobwebs over furniture and across doorways. It will creep out your friends to get tangled up in icky webs. And what would Halloween be without creepy, crawly spiders to go with those icky webs. To make spiders paint the inside and outside of a cardboard egg carton black. When it is dry, cut out the cells to make 12 spider bodies. Poke eight black pipe cleaner “legs” into each one and bend them to shape then poke a tiny hole in the top and put a thin, long thread in the hole, securing on the inside with tape and hang them from the ceilings and doorways.

Now you need creepy Halloween music. Look for CD’s that have Halloween sound effect like moans and screams that can be played simultaneously with your favorite music. You can also purchase one of the many Halloween music compilations CDs that are out this time of year.

Decorations: check; Music: check; Food and drinks: MUUUHHHAAAAAA!!! This is the fun part. You can make a red jello brain with molds available at the craft store. Garnish around it with bloody guts (smooth rigatoni colored with red food coloring) but tell your friends the guts are just for show. Next, frost a chocolate cake with white frosting. Use black writing gel to make a spinning spiral from the center of the cake to the outer edge. Then take a toothpick, insert it into the frosting in the center of the cake and scrape a thin line all the way to the edge. Do this in eight sections (like pie slices) around the cake and you have created a spider web design.  Then make a big tray of worms, dirt and mud. Start with a roasting pan. Put a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom, then mix together a couple of bags of gummy worms with a box of crushed cookies, either chocolate or graham cracker, and lay over the pudding. Yummy! Other ideas are pizza with guts on top. Make the guts out of spaghetti with marinara sauce. Make “deviled” egg eyes from hard boiled eggs. Just cut them in half, remove the yoke, mash is with mayonnaise, salt, pepper and green food coloring the ccoop the mixture back into the whites and garnish with a black olive in the center for a pupil and thinly slice pieces of pimento around it to make it look bloodshot. They are delicious and the texture is soooooooo creepy.

For drinks you can use any juice or punch you like. The key is in the props. Melt a quart of sherbet and pour it into a rubber glove. Place it back into the freezer until it sets. When guests arrive, remove the rubber glove and place the severed hand it in the center of your punch bowl to keep the punch cold as the hand melts the sherbet will more flavor. Turn your punch bowl into a smoldering witch’s cauldron by tossing in a piece of dry ice.

You’ve got all of the things you need to create the atmosphere so how about some games? Keep them fun and simple so you’ll still have plenty of time for socializing. Try a “reverse apple bob.” Instead of bobbing for apples in water which is cold, wet and uncomfortable you can give it a twist that is even more fun. Have two people stand on chairs each holding the end of a broomstick. Then take two apples and poke them with a popsicle stick that has a hole drilled on the end. Run a long string through the hole and tie it to the broomstick so the apple dangles from string. Have two contestants put their hands behind their back and try to take a bite out of their apple. The first one to do it wins. Then replace the bitten apples with fresh ones and have two more friends play. Award a candy bar to each winner. You will be hysterical watching your friends bobbing and weaving with their mouths wide open. Be sure to take lots of pictures.

Having a Halloween Spooktacular Party is great way to celebrate the holiday. Have a ghastly good time!