My children love Halloween, the dressing up, the spooky decorations, and of course the trick or treating. This year we have decided to hold a Halloween party and invite a few of their friends. If you fancy holding your own Halloween party here are my top Halloween party tips.

Costumes 

A huge part of the Halloween celebration is dressing up. You could make your child’s costume if you are that way inclined. As I don’t sew, nor have a huge amount of free time I generally buy one.

My tip is make sure you don’t leave it until the last min. In early October the shops are full of fantastic (generally affordable) costumes. By late October I have found most of them are gone and finding the right costume in the right size can cause a bit of a headache. So make sure you buy your costumes before the rush.

A great addition to every costume is face paints. Face paints really make a costume come to life. It is also brilliant fun for the children, and helps to fire their imagination.

Decorations 

If you want to create a really spooky atmosphere at your Halloween party go to town with the decorations.

The centrepiece for your decorations will be your pumpkin. I buy a nice big pumpkin and the children help me to create his spooky face. Fill him with candles and pop him on your doorstep. If you really want to go to town get some smaller pumpkins and have a family of pumpkins guarding your house.

Their are lots of other fantastic craft tutorials online for decoration ideas. Since I am terrible at crafts I’m afraid I will be buying our decorations. If you feel the same way then my tip is to head to your local pound shop, they usually stock lots of halloween decorations at a bargain price.

Food

Children love novelty food, so go to town on your spooky feast.

I will be making a hummus graveyard using hummus, mini pitta breads (or large ones cut into headstone sized shapes), food colouring (a paint brush) and a shallow square dish.

Fill the dish with hummus deep enough to stand the ‘headstones’ in. Use the food colouring to write your headstone epitaphs. Pop your headstones into the hummus and you have a hummus graveyard.

Dead mans finger sandwiches. Cover a piece of white bread with a spreadable filling of your choice. Roll the bread up and use food colouring to draw on a fingernail and knuckles.

As I have Wonder Girl (17 months) and another toddler headed to the party I will also be filling some bowls with these Ella’s Kitchen cinnamon and oranges munchy biccies. They are delicious (I can vouch for that), full of goodness and contain no refined sugar, fantastic for all my guests.

Games

I plan on playing some games at my party, these are my ideas;

Bobbing for apples, obviously the traditional Halloween party game. Fill a shallow washing up bowl or bucket with water and apples, then try to get the apple using only your mouth. Don’t forget to take the stalks off to prevent cheating.

Pin the hat on the witch, fangs on the vampire, tail on the black cat. A spooky theme to this classic children’s party game.

Zombie musical statues, another spooky themed traditional game. Give the children a giggle by joining in and showing off your best zombie dancing.

Another fun idea is to print some halloween themed colouring in sheets and let the children spend some time colouring. This could be a good way to calm the kids down after all the sugar and crazy games.