Halloween is my favorite time of year -- even more so than Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I really like Christmas -- but it can be so stressful making or buying presents for everyone and trying to make the season special for your children with special events and parties.

Halloween, on the other hand, is just plain fun!

The Halloween party plan below is designed for pre-teen and teenage children, and is designed to be a costume party -- what would any Halloween party be without the costumes?

Setting The Stage

The fun begins as soon as the kids arrive at the party location (most likely your house). You can start setting the stage for a very creepy party by decorating the outside entrance of your house. My favorite idea is to transform your front yard into a graveyard.

Surround your party entrance with tombstones, cobwebs, spiders, ghosts and lot's of other 'surprises.' Depending on how scarry you want your graveyard to look, you can add glowing eyes, ghosts, skeletons, warning signs, scarry tree accents, grave evaders, and other ghoulies. If you really want to set the stage with your guests, put a fog machine at the entrance so that fog fills the floor of your 'Crypt' (the room where the party takes place) and also creates a very spooky effect for your guests as they approach your door.

Here's another tip for using your existing trees in your scary decorating -- cut up long strips of clear plastic sheeting about 4 inches wide and hang them on tree branches. You can get the sheeting at any hardware store. The plastic sheet strips will reflect the light and create a ghostly effect.

You already have some of the fog from the fog machine blanketing the floor -- this will go a long way toward creating a creepy feeling in your party room.

The next thing to think about is your lighting. You'll want things to be very dimly lit to create the right atmosphere. Candles work really well, but are pretty dangerous to use for a kid's party. A better alternative is to use black lights, replace regular light bulbs with dark bulbs, and use glowing objects placed strategically around the room. In addition, you'll want to cover all your furniture, tables, couches, etc. with black fabric. You may even want to hang some black fabric over your curtain rods to cover your existing curtains. After all, no one wants to see your flowered couch or checked curtains during a creepy Halloween party.

Once you get your basic lighting set up, you'll want to set up some strategic objects to help set the spooky atmosphere of your party. Finish things off with lots of cobwebs, a few plastic spiders and maybe even some bats hanging from the ceiling, and the stage will be set.

One final note on setting the stage, don't forget to put on some scary Halloween music before the guests arrive. You can get music that is gothic style music, or you can purchase a CD of creepy noises, sounds, and screams.

Halloween Activities

One of my favorite activities for a teen Halloween party is to hand out glow in the dark silly string and let them squirt each other and the room. This is a great icebreaker activity... the first few to arrive can ambush the new arrivals as they come in the door. It gets everybody loosened up and ready to have fun.

Treats 'n Guts - Fill a large container with something disgusting like spaghetti, jello, grapes, and anything else you can think of that is slimy. Bury small plastic prizes in the 'guts' and turn down the lights. The kids then dig through the container to find the prizes.

Mummy Wrap - Break the kids into teams of three. Have two members of each team on one side of the room and the third member on the other side of the room. Give each team a roll of white bath tissue (the paired up team members will use it first while the single on the other side of the room watches). When the game starts, one member must wrap the other to look like a mummy. The mummy must be totally covered except for eyes. Once the person is wrapped, they must walk like a mummy across the room to the third team member. The third team member must carefully unwrap the mummy. Now the one who was the mummy must wrap the third teammate using the same tissue. Once wrapped, the mummy must return to the starting point to repeat the process with the remaining team member. The first team to have all three mummies walk across the room wins.

Guess How Many - This is an old standby game for many different kinds of parties. Fill a jar with candy corn and have guests guess how many are in the jar. (Don't forget to count as you put them in the jar!) Place the jar near the door and hand each guest a 3x5 card to put their name, their guess and their favorite Halloween candy. Halfway through the party read them all off and announce the winner.

Pass Along Jack - Using small plastic jack-o-lanterns, or a miniature pumpkin, line the kids up in teams. The first person in each team is given a jack-o-lantern to place under their chin. The first in line must pass it to the next in line, but neither can use their hands. The first team to get the jack-o-lantern all the way to the end of the line is the winner.

Goblins - Spread a pile of wrapped candy on a table or large tray. Give each guest a container like a small bag, bowl, or paper cup. Set a timer for 30 seconds and have the kids get as much candy into their containers as possible without using their hands. When time is up, the one with the most pieces wins, but everyone gets to keep the candy they maneuvered into their containers.

Halloween Memory Game - Place a few themed items such as a candy corn, apple, mini pumpkin, plastic spider, etc. on a tray. Show the tray to the guests for a few seconds, then have them write down (or call out) as many items as they can remember.

How Many Words - Hand each person a sheet of paper printed out with a Halloween word or phrase such as Haunted House, Trick or Treat, or Scarecrow. Ask each person to make as many words as they can out of the letters in the phrase or word you've given them.

Halloween Scavenger Hunt - Create a list of several Halloween themed items. Break the kids into teams and give them the list. The first team to acquire all the items (or the team with the most) wins. You can make this a scavenger hunt inside a specific area and give them little clues to find it, or you can turn the teams loose on your neighbors to hunt for the items.

What To Serve

Depending on what night of the year you decide to have your Halloween party, there may not be too much food that you need to prepare. If you choose to have your party on Halloween and make it part of trick-or-treating, then the kids will eat a lot of their candy and only want to nibble on a few other things. Either way, you'll want to keep your menu simple, but creative.

When you set up your serving table, you'll want to think of it like kind of a buffet. Cover your table with a black cloth. Set out your food, plates, napkins, plastic ware, etc. I usually put drinks at one end with cups, finger foods at the opposite end, and 'real' food in the middle. After I get all the food placed, then I put some little decorations out to dress up the table -- in this case, miniature tombstones, bats, spiders, cobwebs, bones, etc. work well. Remember, the food is part of your overall presentation.

One more food note: Half the fun of eating Halloween recipes is pretending that they are something ghoulish. I put a place card in front of each dish with the name of the food on it. That way the kids will know that they are eating a 'witch's hand' or drinking 'vampire's blood.'

Ingredients 1 Pillsbury® Moist Supreme® Devil's Food Cake Mix 1 cup sour cream 1 egg 1 box oval sandwich cookies Frosting to decorate (gray)

1. Pour one box of dry Devil's food cake mix into a medium-sized bowl.

2. Add one cup of sour cream along with one egg. Mix well with spatula until all the batter is moist and has a mousse-like consistency.

3. Proceed by greasing and flouring a large pan.

4. With clean fingers, take a small handful of batter and make a long rectangle (this will not be a perfect rectangle, it will look very dirt-like). Rectangle should be about 1 inch by 4 inches. These will spread out a bit, so be sure to leave equal space between each bar.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes or until springy to the touch.

6. While bars are baking, divide your sandwich cookies in half and scrape out the frosting. Frost as desired to decorate your headstones.

7. When bars are baked and have cooled, cut a very small slit in them 3/4 of the way up. Frosting works great for glue.

8. Frost the slit and add your headstone to finish your Halloween masterpiece.

9. Have fun! These spooky treats are wonderful served a la mode and drizzled with hot fudge. Makes 12 to 14 bars.

Party Cake Recipes...

Vampire's Blood with Bugs

Ingredients:

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients together and serve in plastic wine goblets. You could also put this mixture in a cauldron and let kids serve themselve. Makes 8-10 small servings.

Witch's Brew

Mix 1 bottle 7-Up or Sprite, 1 large can of pineapple juice, and 1/2 can of frozen lemonade (thawed) together. Add red, green, and yellow food coloring until you get the desired color -- I like to go for a swampy look. Add a frozen hand mold (do this in advance... see below).

One really fun idea is to make this up at the party and let the kids watch. What you do is make a real production of it -- use a cauldron, call each of the ingredients by spooky names (like pineapple juice could be swamp water for example), and turn it into kind of a ceremony. You can also include other things into the brew like coconut (warewolf toenails), gummy worms (must have got caught up in the swamp water) etc. You can be as creative as you want with this and make it scarry, or funny.

Creepy Floating Hand for Witches Brew

Fill rubber surgical gloves with colored water or fruit juice. Tie shut and freeze. Gently remove glove and place hand in punch. Don't worry if finger breaks off, just toss in the punch too... it will give it a special touch. Be sure not to use powdered gloves for this!

Bloody Brains

Ingredients:

Directions:

Place the cream cheese on a platter and shape it into an oval brain shape. Pour the salsa over the top of the cream cheese. Put a variety of crackers or chips all around your 'brain.'

Ingredients:

Directions:

Lay each chicken breast out on a cutting board. Make 4 horizontal cuts through the breast about halfway from the end. This should make something that loosely resembles a hand with 4 fingers and a thumb. Do this with each of the breasts. From this point, simply follow the instructions on the Shake n' Bake box. Then the chicken is done, serve with the Witch's Handcream below.

Witch's Handcream

This is simply ranch dip with food coloring in it. You can make the dip any way you like, then add drops of food coloring until you get the desired color. I like to make the dip a very bright green.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Crush the package of Oreo cookies until it is in pretty small pieces and set aside. Cream together 1/2 stick of margarine or butter, 8 oz. package cream cheese, and 3/4 cup powdered sugar and set aside. Mix together the milk and the pudding. Add in the cream cheese mixture and mix well. Fold in the Cool Whip.
Layer the ingredients in the 9' x 13" pan starting with cookie crumbs, then pudding mixture. Insert the gummy worms wherever you want as you continue your layers. You should end with cookie crumbs on top. Refrigerate overnight if possible.

Serve with a small shovel and have each guest 'dig' a grave when they serve themselves.

Melt some chocolate chips in the microwave. Add chow mein noodles and mix until the noodles are well-coated. Place them by tablespoon full on wax paper and chill for at least 8 hours.

Other Snacks

You'll want to add some other muchies to the party table to make sure that everyone has something to eat. Chips, popcorn, pretzels, trail mix, m & m's, etc. all work well. In addition, you'll want to provide other drinks besides the punch... especially water, but you may also want to include soda or drink boxes.

Don't Let Them Leave Empty Handed

When it comes to party favors and prizes, you'll have to consider your audience. Older kids will appreciate things like pads of paper, special pens, stamps, finger games, etc. for party favors. A pre-teen audience may lean more toward temporary tattoos, stickers, puzzle books, etc. Candy and gum usually works well for everyone.

In addition, you may want to consider special memory favors for your guests. You could set up a photo booth, for example, and use a digital camera and printer on the spot. See Memory Making for more ideas.

If you are really hard up for prizes for your party games -- something that might be especially difficult for a teen party, you might actually consider money as the prize. I'm not talking about a lot of money, just a buck or two per prize. You may want to go higher on more difficult games, it's up to you. Using money as the prize has some distinct advantages. Everyone likes money, so you won't have to worry about if the kids will like the prizes you came up with. In addition, you'll probably come out cheaper by handing out cash prizes instead of buying prizes.

You can always come up with clever ways to hand out the money so that it seems more special. For example, you could put the money folded up inside a balloon so that the recipient has to pop the balloon to find out how much money then have won.

If you decide to purchase party favors and prizes, Oriental Trading Company can be a life saver. It's a great place to pick up some cheap prizes, decorations, and even Trick-or-Treat items.