Whilst many of us see Halloween as a non-holiday it can be a great time for your kids even if for us it’s mainly a mess and more sweets than we’d generally like our children to have! However making an effort for Halloween is something many of us don’t know where to begin with. So with that in mind we thought we’d put together a quick guide to making a spooky Halloween for your kids.
Firstly – We need decorations.
Decorating your house is a great way to begin to increase the spook factor of your Halloween and you can begin simply by buying a few easy props to decorate and turning the lights down.
First things first we’re going to get the houses ambience correct. Close all the curtains and dim all the lights. If you don’t have dimmable lights then you should invest in some Halloween themed low glow lights so that you can have a minimal amount of light in the main party room. This will give the party a nice dark atmosphere. If you’re kids aren’t too young then dribbled candles make a fantastic cheap alternative. With the lighting done we can now move to the more mainstream decorations. If you’re looking for standardised Halloween decorations then you can get these from a variety of shops online and offline in the run up to Halloween. If you decide to take this route then dropping spiders, skeletons and fake cobwebs are a must as these will give your party a great dark feel. If you want to take an alternative route though you can make much some of your own decorations. This makes a good family activity day but may spoil some of the scariness.
The easiest decorations to make are large spider webs which can be made with pipe cleaners and cotton wool or just large pieces of cotton wool. All you need to do is stretch out the cotton as much as possible so that it forms a thin web like sheet. Then drape this artfully around your house and hey presto – cheap spooky spider webs. Secondly we can make our very own scary monster by stuffing some old clothes and using either a fake skeleton or a pumpkin for a head – then we can use fake blood (Or food colouring) to drench the shirt in blood . Thirdly we can get a fake coffin from a local Halloween shop and use this as a table centrepiece – covering it with fake spiders, cobwebs and other ghastly delights. Finally no Halloween would be complete without pumpkin carving and this is a great family activity that is relatively cheap and will provide you with soup nice soup material. There are lots of other ways to make your own decorations but these are some of the simplest and most fun. With that in mind we now turn to your other party necessities.
Secondly – We need activities.
Having a selection of activities helps your party stick in the minds of all your guests – not just the children. Top of the list has to be a scary story. This is free entertainment and goes down very well. You can find age appropriate spooky stories for free online or buy a book of them. To set up the activity turn out all the lights and read the story by a single candle or using a torch to light up your face. This will make the story a lot scarier and provides the perfect opportunity for an accomplice to jump out at the children at an appropriate point for added terror. Secondly we always have the age old favourite of blindfolded “food” eating. This is another easy one with peeled grapes making great eyes, thick spaghetti making worms and cooked mince in sauce making great brains. There are hundreds of things you can claim food is so experiment and have fun. Finally there is the ever traditional apple bobbing – with a twist. Amongst the apples you want to put scary things. Floating fake spiders, shriveled brains (store bought plastic of course) and make the water red with food colouring. There are hundreds of great Halloween activities and these are some of our favourites.
Finally – We need food and music
Finally you want to make sure that you have an appropriate sound track for your Halloween and that you have some scary food. The simplest way to make the food is to use traditional party food and label it as something else – this won’t fool your older guests for a second but it will your kids. Also make your own punch and make it a deep dark red colour with things floating in it – preferably Halloween themed sweets.
Finally your soundtrack for the evening can set the tone for your whole party so you’ll want to spend some time on it. If you want to go for standard Halloween songs then there are plenty available from Michael Jackson’s Thriller to John Carpenter’s Halloween. You can buy some good Halloween mixes complete with scary intervals but making your own can often be more fun.
Lastly remember to act the part throughout the evening and have a great Halloween…………Boo!