Thread: Need A Bit Of Help, Please

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Okay, I usually have parties with a scary theme. This year we live on a military base and my husband wants just some of the people from his office to attend. Fine with me. He (husband) is deploying to Afghanistan in November, so I don't really want to do a lot of Death and Horror.

I was thinking of having a set up outside with the fire pits going, lots of JOLs etc. And decorating the inside in a warm, cozy, Autumn kind of way. But that doesn't quite satisfy me.

So- do you have any ideas of how to make it a little scary? Or how to give the scene some of that shivery, nostalgic, Ray Bradbury Halloween Tree feel? Thanks in advance.

I think you may want to call it a "costume party" instead of a Halloween party. This will give people the option of dressing up like a pirate, ghost, Elvis, zombie, gangster, etc and not just have them focas on the scare and gore factor which your trying to avoid. Maybe tell them to bring their kids over to make the whole thing a bit of a lighter affair.

As far as decor is concerned you may want to go more "Harvest Festival" look. Pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, lots of black, orange, gray, burnt red colors. Have a pumpkin carving contest, Pinata, cake walk, door prizes etc.

The best thing you can do is just have a nice evening at home on Halloween handing out goodies to the trick or treaters and remembering the fun and innocence of your own childhood.

Good luck, God bless, and hope he comes home safe and sound.

Marc V. and family

i have an annual halloween party at my mothers house (bigger house than mine) and she doesn't like abunch of gore and evil stuff so i went with a cool mad scientist theme last year. idea 1. go to dollar tree or same type of store and get a couple of different size vases or jars, or if you have some already, then you can do acouple of things, i have used a big jar take colliflower and cut it to resimble a brain, fill with water and some food dye for effect. or you can get a fish tank air pump at walmart for $5 and some extra pipe and connectors the will not take you over spending $10 or so then run the pipes into the different tubes causing them to bubble like in old horror movies. you can also just fill the jars/vases with water and about 1/4 of a cup of liquid laundry detergent, put a black light behind or over and they will glow. cover your table with a white sheet and some fake gause (also found at dollar tree) i then i use fake spider webs cover the lamps and pictures and bookcase's will add effect and also black light bulbs in the lamps (i have found spiral hallogen ones work more like the tube lights reflecting off white and what not better than the regular type bulbs) all very easy and pretty cheap. all together looking at spending less than $40 if you shop right in the right spots. i would say check dollar tree in mid to late september b/c they start setting stuff out around the beginning of sept and if you wait til october people start just swooping it all up, like myself.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that's our goal this year, more laid back and casual. But I still want it to be fun. ( And just for the record, my husband is not a soldier/troops guy. He won't be in daily imminent danger. He's a JAG and works in an office. So, this deployment wouldn't be as bad for as it would be for other families.)