Creative Ideas for a Spooky Halloween Party

By Nia Sowden

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The food was the most fun!

Try thinking of some really creative ways to present your food for Halloween. Kids love anything gory and ghoulish so the food should represent this.

We began with a banquet table covered in orange table cloths. The center piece was made up of pumpkins of different shapes — some with faces cut into them with little black candles placed inside. A selection of different apples both whole and sliced across the seeds to show the pentacle and nuts were scattered around.

We served Blood and Guts — spaghetti bolognaise with different pasta shapes and mozzarella cheese for a gooey sticky stretchy texture.

The kids also made their own individual Monster pizzas! All manner of monsters were placed into the oven that night. Some kids made skeleton faces with one large slice of mozzarella and olives and salami as the eyes and mouth and a sliced gherkin for the nose.

For dessert we had ‘Dead Mans Hand’. This involved setting jelly inside a plastic glove with red licorice and marshmallow lengths forming the tissue and sinew out of the back of the hand — it really looked severed!

We also made Axe Mans Snacks which the kids loved. This involved taking small bread rolls and creating a hole in one end. We then filled the hole with sauce and mustard and then pushed a hot dog inside to resemble a severed finger. Eeeooww!

The Games

A Halloween party is not the same without some fun games for the kids and the scarier the better. Of course keep in mind the age of the children as you don't want to scar them for life. We had great fun in thinking up games that would suit all ages.

The Fortune Teller

Each child was given a gold coin (the chocolate kind) to give to the fortune teller, who told the children their future by looking into a crystal ball. She also had them turn cards over and read the mystical secrets revealed to her. Thankfully 9 year olds only want to know if they will be rich, pretty, or a movie star....too easy. For anything too hard for the gypsy fortune teller, Merlin has the answers.

Merlin’s’ Wands

Take one large piece of cardboard divided in half, one half has yes on it the other has no. The children stand in a circle around the card. The questioner holds a collection of sticks at arms length over the cardboard, asks a question and drops the sticks. If more sticks land on yes the answer is yes. The questioner resumes a place in the circle while another participant asks Merlin a question.

I want my Mummy

This is a team competition where the children are given rolls of toilet tissue to wrap up a volunteer as a mummy. The best mummy is totally wrapped up and can walk without bending their legs or arms, then they must be unwrapped carefully and another team member is wrapped up, the team who can wrap the whole team up one after the other without tearing and ripping the paper wins.

The Headstone

During the party each child was escorted to the ‘graveyard’. They were shown by torch light their own life size head stone which they took home as a memento.

The Halloween Party to Remember

The children had an absolute blast of a time. They danced the ‘monster mash’ and the ‘time warp’ and lots of other silly spooky songs as well as being dressed in costumes.

The adults in attendance also had fun enjoying the squeals of fright or should that be delight? I know there were lots of ‘yucks’ and surprised gasps at the food or meeting a spider face to face, and as for the reaction when introduced to their very own grave stone, that was priceless!!!

They all ate gross food made by themselves, had their life stories exposed, received an answer from Merlin, went trick or treating in an enormous group and returned to share the spoils of a truly terrific time. •

© 2007 Nia Sowden

About the Author
Nia Sowden is a freelance author for Only Cookware — a consumer resource for stainless steel cookware, cast iron cookware and Dutch ovens.

10/8/07