Planning a Halloween party... need some help!

[nickelsfamily]

We will be having a halloween party at our home this year. We plan on inviting friends and family. It will be a family friendly party no alcohol. Everyone must come in costume, I am going to dress as Snow White! Can't wait!!

Any ideas for things to do??? This will be our first halloween party and I am clueless...
Also, when do you think is a good time to send out the invites?
TIA

 

[summerrluvv]

We have a halloween party for DS and his friends each year so all of our games are kiddie oriented, but I'll try to help you!

Decoration wise..we put the punch in a black cauldron. You could also get dry ice to make it have the smokey effect. I haven't been brave enough to do that yet though!!

I get clear plastic gloves (dollar tree has 100 of them for $1.00), pop some popcorn, put candy corn in the fingers of the gloves for nails then fill the gloves with the popcorn and seal them with a black twisty tie. The kids love those and they can eat the popcorn.

I make the "Boo Cups" from the Kraft Foods website, those are a hit with the parents and the kids.

If you want to do kid only games, we usually play pass the pumpkin, have a pinata, guess how much candy corn in the jar. I also do the spoon race with the kids holding spoons in their mouth with a fake eyeball on the spoon and then they get into teams and race. We also do pin the spider on the web and I print out paper spiders and they pin them on a big rattan type web I got from Big Lots.

I send the invites out about 3-4 weeks before.

I have soooooooooooooo much halloween stuff this year thanks to Target's 90% off sale last year.

Have fun!

 

[disneyfanforever]

I threw a neighborhood Halloween party a couple years ago. However, at our party, the adults weren't dressed up (although that sounds like so much fun and I definitely would have picked to be Snow White too) and everything was geared for the kids. Some of the activites we had were 1) The Mummy - we had each parent wrap their child as fast as they could in toilet paper to make them into a mummy. The kids loved this and we got some great pictures. 2) Prize Walk - pretty much like a cake walk that we always used to do but the person whose number was called got to be a prize out of the cauldron rather than win a cake. 3) We selected several items and placed them in trick or treat buckets (covering the tops so you couldn't see what was inside) and labeled them gross things and made the kids stick their hands in them. For example, spaghetti was labeled brains, peeled grapes were eyeballs, etc.

We had a blast but it was a lot of work. Have a great time. I hope I helped a little.

 

[Planogirl]

Go to Garden Ridge for decorations. They get their stuff out early and they're reasonably priced. You can get pretty much anything - I like skeleton lights and tapes with spooky music and sounds myself. It really depends on how spooky you want to go.

As for activities, if you have younger kids you could do a Halloween pinata. If you want something gross, you can do the "guess what you're feeling game." You put stuff in a box with a hole and people have to reach in and feel what's inside. You use stuff like spaghetti, grapes and so on, and body parts are usually the items to guess. There's tons of treats too that can be made to theme by cutting shapes and using food coloring.

I would google for some ideas. Halloween is big business.

 

[Planogirl]

This is a cool punch and it was easy to find when I googled:

1 (.13 ounce) envelope unsweetened grape soft drink mix
1 (.13 ounce) envelope unsweetened orange soft drink mix
2 cups white sugar
3 quarts cold water
1 liter ginger ale

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DIRECTIONS:
To make a frozen hand, wash a disposable glove, fill with water, seal with a rubber band and freeze until hard.
Stir together grape soft drink mix, orange soft drink mix, sugar and water until solids are dissolved. Combine with chilled ginger ale just before serving. Dip the frozen hand briefly in warm water, then peel off the glove. Float the prepared hand in the punch bowl for a ghastly effect.