Of all the seasons, I have always LOVED the fall the most! And Halloween was always such a favorite growing up.
Pre-kids, we used to have “Trick or Drink” in our old neighborhood where all the adults would get dressed up and go to 5 homes for snacks and drinks. It was a great time for all the empty nesters (and those of us who didn’t have kids quite yet).
Fast forward a few years, and now we’re doing Halloween just a little differently! And each year, it gets a little more crazy and a lot more fun!
This year, Halloween 2021, we were super excited for Halloween to fall on a weekend (again!) and that we had absolutely perfect weather to host a pre trick or treat party in the front yard/cul-de-sac, complete with dozens of families and nearly 100 people in all to join in for the fun!
Emma started a new school, so we were able to invite her new classmates and get to know several of the families better. And we had handful of kids from the normal crew from Ellie’s school!
Invites:
Since we had to wait to see what the weather was going to be like, we decided on digital/text invites to keep it simple. I ended up finding a cute online invite and taking a screenshot, but you could also use PaperlessPost.com, Evite.com, or Punchbowl.com for better tracking! I like Punchbowl because it allows a custom invite.
Activities:
I’m always looking for ways to keep kids busy and having fun and crafts and activities are always a hit. Since the kids are still pretty young (pre-k throught 3rd grade), it doesn’t take too much to keep them entertained!
Activities included:
- Coloring Pages. You can simply “Google” coloring pages and find hundreds of options. I have a subscription with DepositPhotos.com so I like to grab the high quality images from there. Here are samples of the ones we used this year!
- Scratch Art. These are always a big hit with kids of all ages. This year, we did scratch art masks. We got these masks and these “ornaments.”
- Cotton Ball Ghosts. This is a good one for kids of all ages as well. The littlest ones can simply glue cotton balls on the sheet with the ghost outline and googly eyes or construction paper eyes!
I love my Cricut for cutting out eyes and mouths for projects like this, but you can easily go ahead and cut out circles or different shapes for the ghost.
The older ones can practice their cutting skills and cut the ghost out. I like these scissors for the kids.
- Donut Eating Contest. This was one of my favorites from fall parties and Halloween events as a kid. We hung up 6 pieces of twine in advance along the tree branches at the bottom of our driveway at different heights to accommodate kids from 2 to 12!
We got 2 dozen glazed donuts so we could have 4 rounds of six kids. And we had powdered donut holes as a backup that we could poke string through in the event we needed more rounds and/or the littler kids wanted to give it a go!
It was a huge hit! And we all shared lots of laughs
- Trampoline. We took out the small trampoline for the littles spookies to jump and play on!
- Photo Booth. We use these in our real estate company all the time and they’re always a huge favorite at parties for photos opps! You can find any number of options on Amazon for $10-$25. We went with one we had last year, but next year… we’ll step it up with a little more of a “spooky” theme as the kids all get older
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- Candy-Stuffed Balloons. These were in the Top 3 activities for all the kiddos!
We started our morning off sticking 2-4 pieces of candy inside of orange, black and purple balloons. Since they pop instantly upon hitting the grass, we tried putting them on sticks and sticking them In the front yard, but when the wind blew, they hit the grass and popped!
So, we decided to keep them inside and bring them out during the party! However, the first kid that came in to see the witches and other decorations accidentally popped one and the cat was out of the bag! They ransacked the house and went to town on the candy filled balloons!
NOTE: I would 100% invest in a balloon machine if you want to do this AND to have a buddy. It’s much easier to have one person hold the balloon open and another to drop the candy in!
We have yet to run out of food or drinks at a party, but I’m always scared that we will, so at the last minute, we had a few additions to our menu!
For the adults:
- Smoked pork butt. Dad did this on the smoker the day before so we could just heat it up right before the party! He’d probably kill me if I gave his secret recipe, but a Big Green Egg and Myron Mixon will give you a good start! We paired the pork with homemade BBQ sauce, pickles, onions and of course Kings Hawaiian rolls!
- Homemade Mac n’ Cheese. We have the perfect recipe that pleases adults AND even the pickiest little ones from thechunkychef.com.
- Traditional Potato Salad. Potato salad pairs well with BBQ and it’s a pretty inexpensive side to add bulk to your menu. I did double the recipe and added a couple of extra hard boiled eggs, more herbs and a LOT more salt and pepper to get the right flavor! Here’s the recipe I started with from inspiredtaste.net.
- Beer, Wine, Hard Seltzer and Fall Punch (for the adults). Lots of people brought their own beverage of choice, but we did have a well-stocked variety of beer, wine, seltzer and a spiked fall punch. We did a few people sneak in for some bourbon tasting too! On the fall punch… we doubled the recipe, but you may want to cut the fruit portions down quite a bit. You could easily just double the liquid measures and keep the fruit consistent with the original recipe.
- And to bring a bit of Halloween 2021 theme to the snacks, we had a table set with kid-friendly, Halloween-themed treats and signs!
- “Jack-o-lantern” Oranges. These are super easy to make and help bring the theme to any table. These are also perfect for a centerpiece if you’re not doing a full party!
These are even fun to let your kids help create (if you’re a perfectionist/control freak like me, it may make you shake just a little bit as your little one creates their first “imperfect” Jack-o-lantern, but at the end of the day, it’s all about them, so embrace the fun! Not the finished product!!!)
- Ghost Poop. These were against my better judgement, but the kids sure did think they were funny! You can use any marshmallows you may have in the pantry! I had planned to use mini marshmallows, but when I looked in the pantry, all we had were GIANT marshmallows for smores!
So that’s what we went with! They were hit because they were so GIANT and the kids couldn’t believe how big they were.
- “Jack-o-lantern” Oranges. These are super easy to make and help bring the theme to any table. These are also perfect for a centerpiece if you’re not doing a full party!
These are even fun to let your kids help create (if you’re a perfectionist/control freak like me, it may make you shake just a little bit as your little one creates their first “imperfect” Jack-o-lantern, but at the end of the day, it’s all about them, so embrace the fun! Not the finished product!!!)
- Spider Eggs. Powdered donut holes make this a snap! We just dumped them on a plate with a few plastic spiders, and poof… giant spider eggs!
Plus, these served as a good back up plan for the donut eating contest for the littlest goblins that couldn’t do the full size donuts!
- Witches Teeth. We always have chocolate chips for baking on hand, so this was an easy one! Just be careful if you’re in a hot climate and don’t put them out too early OR put them on top of a little ice bath to keep the chips from melting.
- Mummy Stitches. Grab a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or a “generic” version at your grocery store and you’re good to go!
- Skeleton Bones. White chocolate covered pretzels for the win here! We got two bags and simply dumped them into a dollar store bowl. You could also have toothbpicks or little dowels and turn this into a food “craft” activity as well by putting the skeleton bones on the sticks and topping off with a “spider egg” or “ghost poop” for the head!
I made the labels using the “October Crow” font that I downloaded for free from Da Font. I simply printed them out on card stock, cut them down to size and glued them to Halloween-themed cardstock that I had picked up from Michaels on clearance last year!
We also had “Mummy Dogs” and a carrot “pumpkin” with ranch dressing for a little sustenance for the kids!
