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Throw a Halloween Party

This Halloween, why not throw a party for your friends and family! Halloween is a great time to throw a party, especially if you’re worried about little ones trick-or-treating outdoors. Plan a themed Halloween party or go traditional with a spooky or haunted house theme. Be sure to check out our Halloween recipes section for party snacks with a creepy twist.

Halloween Party Themes

Don’t feel like doing the usual haunted house party? Then how about one of these great Halloween party themes?

Cartoon Theme
Pick your child’s favorite cartoon show and ask everyone to come as a character from it. Try serving themed food too. For example, if your child likes SpongeBob Squarepants, try making the food Krusty Krab’s fast food joint themed.

Harry Potter Halloween Party
Have everyone dress up as his or her favorite Harry Potter character. Serve butter beer, pumpkin juice, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, etc. Decorate your house as Hogwarts School Of Wizardry.

Frankenstein’s House
A slight twist on the usual haunted house, ask all the kids to come dressed as their favorite monster. Making your house look like an old, creepy science lab will definitely help everyone get in the mood.

Super Hero Party
Kids love comic books and super heroes, so indulge that love by letting the kids dress-up as their favorite super hero. For food, you can serve hero sandwiches, powerful punch and brave brownies.

Décor Ideas

Whether your party has a theme or not, you’ll still want to make sure that your place has a nice Halloween feel to it. To decorate for your party, string orange and black crepe paper, place pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns around the room, get cotton stuffing and stretch it out to make cobwebs.

To give the room a nice eerie glow (perfect for Frankenstein’s House), buy some black and green light bulbs. A CD of scary noises is always a staple at any Halloween party, so put one and have it playing in the background. Hang glow-in-the-dark bats, skeletons and spiders from the ceiling and trees.

For food that can double as décor, check out the recipe for Witches Brew. And if you need some activities at your party, let the kids enjoy some Halloween crafts, which you can also use as some more Halloween décor.

Games

Don’t let things get dull. Try these games for a spooky good time!

Scary Pumpkin Contest
If you want to do something creative with the kids, try this. If the children at the party will be old enough to safely use a pumpkin carving knife, and you don’t mind the mess, you could give each one a pumpkin to carve, but a better solution for young children, or if you want to avoid getting pumpkin guts everywhere, is to buy everyone a small pumpkin and a permanent marker. Let them draw faces onto their pumpkin and the best faces win a prize. You may want to make up different categories for the young kids so that every child wins something.

Build A Scarecrow
Collect a variety of old clothes, pillowcases for heads, markers and newspaper. Form groups and give each one 20 minutes to create their own scarecrow. Give prizes to the scariest or funniest, then put them outside.

Bobbing For Apples
You and your kids (8+) can be a part of an ancient tradition, and it’s really easy to do. Just get a large, galvanized steel, or plastic tub and fill it with water and any kind of apples you like. To bob for apples, kneel on the floor in front of the tub, hold your hands behind your back, dunk your face in the tub and try to grab an apple with your teeth. If you’re going to play this game, you should make sure you have towels on hand that can take a bit Halloween makeup rubbing off on them!

Scary Stories
Sit in a circle, dim the lights and put a jack-o-lantern or flashlight in the center. Take turns telling spooky stories and trying to scare each other.

Haunted Laboratory
Get a long table and several bowls. Fill one bowl with peeled grapes, for eyeballs, fill another one with cold spaghetti for guts, put some chunks of raw meat in another for brains - have fun coming up with other disgusting, tactile experiences for them! Once your bowls are filled, blindfold the kids and lead them down the table, letting them put their hands in the different bowls. Be sure to have them thoroughly wash their hands after they’re gone down the table.