We were all affected by Covid differently. I missed my friends so so much and having them come over for a chat. The kids did too and found it very hard. 2 years of missed birthday parties, play dates and fun was a lot of time taken from our lives.
For Halloween 2021 we finally could organise some sort of social event for them. My daughter - Izzy, was nine years old back then with a lot of friends from school. As they all were in a same “bubble”, we planned to have a Halloween party at our home. Of course, we still had to have all the windows open in the house :D.
This is what we did!
Invitations.
We went for a dress up party with games, snacks and disco. Invitations needed to reflect the Halloween theme. We made our own design – simple black paper with stickers of a white cat, pumpkins and castle.
But if you aren’t keen on DIY, check out the ones below.
Remember to add some scary sentences like:
- Calling all ghouls & boos for a costume party!
- Eat, drink & be scary!
- Join us in the haunted house party!
Music playlist
No party has ever been successful without good music. The playlist comes from personal preferences, but below are songs we had playing all evening.
- Michael Jackson – Thriller (I think this is a must have)
- Billie Eilish – Bad guy
- “I put a Spell on you” by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker & Kathy Najimy (from Hocus Pocus movie)
- Rihanna – Disturbia
- Monster mash – music by Bobby Picket
- Spooky Scary Skeletons remix
- Rockwell – Somebody’s watching me
- Backstreet Boys – Everybody
- Fifth Harmony – I’m in Love with a monster
- The X files theme song
- Adams Family Theme song
(New edition would be: Lady Gaga – Bloody Mary (TikTok Remix) Wednesday’s dance.
Disco
We had disco lights from previous years which were cheap, but surprisingly do a great job.
Twin Rotating Double Disco Ball Lamp : Amazon.co.uk: Lighting
Since then, we have also purchased laser lights as at our new place we have whole Dj set 😊 (yes, we are party animals). A friend gifted us with a smoke machine which I don’t have a link to.
At that point we didn’t have the cool and fancy proper Dj decks (I am still figuring out how to use them 😃 ), but what we DID have (still do) was this amazing Bluetooth speaker – Panasonic SC-UA30. It has served me well for many years and multiple parties. Many of my friends have borrowed it numerous times. It is a great speaker and can be used as karaoke machine too. The only downside is that the version I have must be plugged in and doesn’t run on batteries.
Snacks
To be honest with you, we went little over the top. Tiny burgers that looked like spiders, Frankfurt sausages that were wrapped in pastry and baked with added red pepper to look like a finger with red nails. We also shop bought Halloween snacks, crisps, finger foods, cut veg and dip sauce. Kids only ate shop bought stuff, veg and crisps, as they were put off by weird looking foods. I would suggest leaving all the fancy pastries that look like eyeballs and spider burgers for parties with older kids.
Decorations
I have been decorating our home for every Halloween since we moved to the UK (2011) adding to a big collection that can be reused. However, in my opinion, the best decor to make your house look spooky is the cobweb. The packs come with plastic spiders in them that you can hang down and they are cheap. You can stretch them as much as you like for a bigger effect.
Games
My favorite bit - games. The disco and snacks were organised in the living room. We decided to have dedicated rooms for the games. In one of the upstairs bedrooms, we set up " Put the broom on the Witch." Second bedroom - "Guess what is in the box", back room - "Apple bobbing" and "Decorate Halloween fairy cakes". For successfully completing each of the games (or participating) kids got chocolate coins.
To be able to run all the games at the same time, we asked help from the older kids (of course they got paid 😀 ).
For the "Put the broom on the Witch" game, we made a big drawing of Witch, cut out a broom shaped cardboard piece and painted it. We used double sided sticky tape and the kids had to stick it on the poster which allowed the Witch to fly. We made it a bit harder by putting blindfolds on kids and they had to spin around equal times to their age. Halloween version for "Pin the tail on donkey" 😀
"Guess what's in the box" was so much fun. It is interesting how even the most innocent things can be scary to touch if you can't see them and do not know what they are 😀 . Take a cardboard box, cut out two circles big enough to be able to fit your hands in on each side. Leave the back of the box open to have an opening for placing "scary" stuff. We glued paper around all the box and drew spiders, cobwebs, snakes.
The kids had to put their hands in the box through the holes on each side and guess what is in there. We prepared things like, soft toy, pealed & cut cucumber, wet bread, and bought dried worms that are usually used for bird feeding, basically anything that might feel slimy and not nice.
The other game we played - "Apple binning" was fun too, but make sure to prepare towels and would suggest placing the game it in a room with an easy to clean hard floor. You will just need a big bowl with warm water and bite size apples, make sure they aren't too big. We also gave the kids swimming googles. The rest is easy, place apples in water, put goggles on and try to get as many apples as you can without using your hands, just with your mouth.
Cupcake decoration was a hit. The night before we baked cakes using the kit from link below, but of course you can use any other kits you like. We set up a small table in kitchen that had all the tubes with icing, pearls, edible rice paper stickers and other cupcake decoration displayed. Girls ate them or took home with them in a party bag.
Dr. Oetker Halloween Sprinkles 4 cell Mix | Ocado
Halloween Edible Sprinkle Mix Cake Cupcake Bats Pumpkins Ghosts 50g : Amazon.co.uk: Grocery
Hide and Seek in the dark
Hide and seek is a great party game, but have you tried playing it in the dark? As you can imagine, girls were not trilled at the beginning. We had anticipated this and bought small torches for their party bags that they could use while we played the game. Me and Ian of course were the seekers all the time and we were not allowed to have torches. It was so much fun and definitely in line with a scary, spooky Halloween party.
I hope this post has given you inspiration and good ideas for the party. For us this was a highlight of the year 🙂