For the past four years my mom, who's 80 this year, and her three BFF's have been holding a Halloween party for all their friends and family. Each year they rotate who's house it's at and each year it's gotten bigger and more people show up. These ladies have more energy at this age then I do now! This year will be the fourth Halloween party and what a party it will be! They find all the costumes online at Costume Kingdom , they have great service, do exchanges for size and you'll find great prices if you are on a budget.

The first year (2008), they were all in nun costumes. They did a little show for the party goers, about 10 people plus themselves, with a recording of that song from the old movie,The Singing Nun, that "Dominica, nica, nica" song or however it goes. It was priceless! They even did the skit at the Methodist church they all go to, for a talent contest and won. Insane!!

The next year (2009) they all went as bananas (a bunch of bananas, get it?). Full banana suits, yellow faces and each of them accessorized the costumes the way they wanted to. One added a ton of jewelry and high heels, One walked around carrying a box of Rice Krispies because everyone has a banana on their cereal. It was just a riot! That year they had about double the amount of people plus the foursome.

Last year (2010) they were all chickens, each in a giant chicken suit (a hen party, get it?). When everyone got there, the gals all lined up, put on a CD of "The Chicken Dance" music and off they went, Chicken Dancing away! It was great and the party gets bigger every year with people that they know coming to see what they are dressed as this year. That year they had about 30 guests.

Well, this year (2011) it's The Wizard of Oz! My mom is the Cowardly Lion, one of the others is Dorothy and the other two are the Scare Crow and Tin man. No one is telling what this years theme is going to be so everyone will be surprised when they walk in and hear "We're off to see the Wizard" playing while these four skip around the house. They are drawing the limit at 35 people this year because they just can't fit anymore in any one's house. Next year, if they are all going strong, they are talking abut renting a hall for the party.

We get most of our costumes from Costume Kingdom.com them as well and they are great to work with. So try out this year and you know you'll have the most unique costume at whatever party you go to! I wish I was able to go to her party but she lives across the country from me. We did get her started off with all the reusable glasses, plates, utensils, bowls and decorations that we could. Each year now I send her some cash so it doesn't have to come out of her very limited budget. She'll still be doing this for another 10 years, at least I hope so!

Well, we seem to be missing some posts from this year but I'll just go on from now.........it's almost Halloween!! Only 53 days to go! We have been planning our yearly Halloween party and have found some great new ideas at Halloween-Online.com .

This year we are thinking of having a Alice in Wonderland party but with a more sinister edge to it. The wife really loves that Tim Burton movie. I'll be the Mad Hatter and she'll be Alice. Other party goers can dress as anyone else except those two characters. So we may end up with lots of Red Queens, White Queens, Staynes and other characters. We may have to coordinate to avoid this problem. We found some great costume info at Halloween-Online.com's costume section.


Party ideas will be to have the party area look kind of like the long table area outside where the Mad Hatter was always seen having tea. The whole house, or what will be seen by party goers will look along the same vein. Very dark, brooding, Victorian. Drinks will be served in glass bottles that all have "Drink Me" labels on them. Little cakes will be served that say "Eat Me" on them, Wraith is making those herself. We'll serve other edibles as well, we don't have the menu down exactly yet.

More on this as it comes up! Should be fun! Weather permitting, we may hold it out in our back yard which is full of creepy looking trees.

Halloween is drawing near and we have a whole week-end to celebrate with Halloween being on a Sunday this year. There will be lots of time for Halloween parties for both adult and kids. To keep the party flowing smoothly, you need to have a plan all worked out ahead of time as to how it's going to go, such as a time of arrival for guests, when and what to eat, when and what kind of games to play, when to put on the Halloween music and dance and so on.

For kids, you can keep the games simple like having a "pumpkin hunt" in the back yard if weather permits or having a Halloween scavenger hunt in your neighborhood. You may want to contact your neighbors and let them know to see if they mind and to make sure that they can fulfill the needs of the hunters.

You'll find all kinds of interesting games for kids and adults at HalloweenGames101 and more at Halloween-Online.com. By using some of the ideas here, it will give you more time to plan the rest of the party since you'll find print out for Halloween word finds and cross word puzzles at the first link and more good ideas at the second one!

It's September 1st and that doesn't leave much time to get it all together before Halloween week-end. Time goes by way too fast so start planning now!

This year our annual Halloween party is going to be bigger and better. As the centerpiece for the banquet table, I am going to make a jack o' lantern shaped ice sculpture. I found a big Jack-O-Lantern shaped mold that I will fill with water that has been tinted with orange food color and put it in the freezer until it is frozen solid. Should look great sitting behind the punch bowl!

Of course, we'll have to set it on some kind of tray to catch the water as it melts. Maybe we should hide something in the center of it, like a skull, so when it melts down far enough you'll see a skull emerging from within. That would look cool! We'll also have to rig up some kind of back lighting for it so the sculpture "glows".

That's just one of the ideas that we've come up with for this years party. More ideas as we develope them!

Halloween is on Saturday this year so that gives us Friday and Saturday for parties or a Friday night for partying and Saturday for trick-or-treating. Oh wait, no kids, so PARTY BOTH NIGHTS!!

We found a lot of good ideas at Halloween Costume Party for last years party so I'm sure we'll check back for new ideas this year. Also, Halloween-Online.com is loaded with anything and everything that you could ever want to think about for Halloween!

So, as the year goes along, we'll be back with new ideas to share for Halloween party ideas. After all, there's only like 250 days until Halloween!

It's going to be a big, bad blow-out this Halloween, being our 25th wedding anniversary, too! We have people coming in from out of town for the week-end so we'll have a full house which is fine. The more, the scarier! Since Halloween is on Saturday this year we can have Halloween fun starting Friday night and go right through until Sunday morning.

Friday night schedule is a dinner party, a fancy costumed dance and cocktails. Not is that order, but cocktails, dinner and then a party and dance. We are setting up an 18 foot tent in the back yard with a complete sound system and computerized DJ. We want formal style costumes, fancy vampires, Gothy stuff. This one is just for our out of town friends, family and closest local friends.

Saturday night we will be all taking turns milling around the yard haunt, handing out candy and spooking the trick-or-treaters. When we finally send the last kid packing, we'll go back out to the tent for the big party for all friends, family and anyone else that drops by with an invite. We'll decorate the tent with gross, gory Halloween stuff and the costumes are whatever people want as long as they are wearing a costume.

Sunday morning will be a breakfast party for anyone still at the house. We'll do a big breakfast but on a Halloween theme starting with Bloody Marys, both virgin and non. Now we just have to start pulling all this together!!

I'm getting ideas for food, music and more at the following sites:
Halloween Music: Halloween Music 101
Halloween Food: Halloween Recipes 101
Halloween Decorations: Halloween Online Decorations section

Nothing perks up a Halloween party like lots of glowing Jack-O-Lanterns! They just shout "Halloween!" So, this year for our party, we want to make sure that we carve a bunch of them! Last years shortage and high prices kept the amount we carved down.

Probably the best thing to come around in recent years are the battery powered lights that take the fire hazard out of Jack-O-Lanterns. We still like to put candles in a few pumpkins, the smell is so nostalgic, we have to do it but any Jacks going outside have battery candles in them.

There's usually a new pack of pumpkin carving templates at the stores, too. We always pick up a couple just so we have the newest ones, if they look cool. And places that sell pumpkin carving patterns on line always have new ones for a really low membership fee.

We put together a carving tool kit years ago after seeing one at PumpkinCarving101.com and have added to it over the years. There's an article about putting one together yourself using things like old kitchen knives, ice cream scoops and things like that. I think this year we'll have to get ours out and take a look at it, see if anything needs to be replaced.