Ghosts of Halloweens Past party last night was a success! (With pictures!)

**v_gan** · 10-24-2010,03:41 PM

I guess my "every other year" curse really is true. It seems like I can only have a good party every other year. Our party last night was great! We did have less guests than the past two years, but the guests we did have were people we actually wanted there. So it was much better.

I think we had about 25 people.

Food:
Everyone loved my food! I had a lot of favorites from past years, as well as a few new things to try out. There really wasn't much of anything left by the end of the night, which tells me two things: (1) I'm getting much better at determining how much food to make, and (2) People really liked the food! Here's my menu, all vegan and homemade:

It the Great (Chocolate Chip) Pumpkin (Cookies), Charlie Brown
Broken Glass Cupcakes (red velvet with vanilla frosting and hard candy glass shards)
Toenail Brittle (peanut brittle)
Oatmeal Scream Pies (mini oatmeal cream pies)
Poisoned Apples (candied apples)

Boo-ternut Squash Soup (butternut squash soup)
Dead Man's Fingers (breadsticks for the soup)
Vegetable Vertebrae Wraps (vegetable wraps)
Seven-Layer Spider's Nest Dip (refried beans, olives, corn, salsa/tomatoes, lettuce, guacamole, and non-dairy sour cream)
Dried Bat Wings (blue corn chips)
Spicy Black Bug Cakes (mini chipotle black bean and pumpkin burger patties with sour cream/cream cheese/adobo sauce spider-webs)
Stuffed Eyeballs (stuffed mushrooms with cajun tofu, breadcrumbs, and olive/pimento pupils)

Bleeding Heart Punch (fruit punch, ginger ale, apple-mango-passion fruit concentrate)
Warm Vampire Blood (hot cranberry punch)
Mauled Apple Cider
Veritaserum (water)

Atomosphere:
Unlike last year, where there was only about 10-15 people at the party at any given time, most people were here at the same time and for the most part, left around the same time (about an hour after the official end of the party). There was always a good amount of people in both the kitchen and living room, and everyone was always either eating, watching the DVDs I had made, or playing games.

Entertainment:
We had a variation of Tempt Your Fate called Trick or Trivia. I had a bunch of knick knacks I didn't want anymore, as well as a bunch of items I had picked up from the Dollar Tree. Everyone that played got a prize. The prizes were in categories 1-5 and the category was determined by how hard the trivia was or how embarrassing the trick was. Category 1 prizes were things like cheap hand puppets and Category 5 prizes included $5 DVDs + a huge gummy brain. All tricks and trivia were Halloween-related and the slips were inside balloons that we attached to a large, black, display board. There was always someone willing or wanting to play! After the game started, we decided to allow people to choose from lower prize categories if they didn't want something in the category specified. Also, some of the more reserved guests didn't want to do some of the tricks or didn't know some of the trivia. So we put those in a bowl for people to pick out of after we ran out of balloons. People really enjoyed playing!

The theme of my party was Ghosts of Halloweens Past - based around childhood memories of Halloween. So I made two DVDs filled with vintage Halloween specials and commercials. I think they went over really well, even if they were crappy quality

The costume contest went well this year. There weren't as many "joke votes" as in years past, and me and my boyfriend were much better at determining who deserved the trophies more when we had to break ties or keep someone from winning two categories.

We had also made an "autopsy table" for everyone to feel Hall O. Ween's body parts. Everyone thought it was fun, and one of our friends actually ate Hall's "dingle dong", as we had labeled it (This was a kid's party! Haha), because he thought it was a food table!

Observations:
People CANNOT read. I repeat: People cannot read! On the Facebook invitation page, it had all the information needed: Address, time, theme, bring a pumpkin.

Multiple people thought the party was at my sisters house, where we had it last year. Some people thought it started at 9 (it started at 7), Not one person brought a pumpkin to paint. We even sent out a message to all the guests a few days before the party, inviting them to bring a small pumpkin to paint for our first pumpkin painting contest. We had the cutest area set up outside, complete with paint, brushes, cups, etc. Is it so hard to spend $2-3 on a pie pumpkin at the grocery store?

Also - all the food was labeled, but I had tons of people asking me what something was. Some people were eating my "spicy black bug cakes" thinking they were desserts!

And during the costume contest, the instructions to put the ballots inside the hollow pumpkin (right next to the ballots) was clearly typed out and displayed. Over half of the people asked where to put their ballots!

Overall, the party was great and a big success. I'm very happy to go out with a "bang", because this will likely be my last party party for a while. Me and my boyfriend will be moving a few hours away next year for college, and the following year we're getting married. So I just won't have the time, money, or heart to go into another big party. I might try a small dinner party/movie night next year.

**Mizerella** · 10-24-2010,03:56 PM

Sounds Awsome! So glad it all went so well. We are not doing a party this year, so I have to live vicariously through everyone.

The BOO- ternut Squash soup sounds delicious, do you have the recipe?

**v_gan** · 10-24-2010,03:57 PM

**v_gan** · 10-24-2010,04:06 PM

**skullnbones** · 10-24-2010,04:09 PM

wow!!!!!!!!!!! looks great! Glad it was a success!

**v_gan** · 10-24-2010,04:10 PM

**v_gan** · 10-24-2010,04:12 PM

(This is the only picture I have of the outside of my house right now)

**llondra** · 10-24-2010,04:25 PM

Everything looks great - your decorations (and home) are just beautiful! Glad to hear your party was such a success

I love that it's all vegan. We're not strict vegetarians, but we do try and keep to a mostly plant based diet, and so I am always looking for good dishes and inspiration - which your dishes are definitely an inspiration. Our party is next week and I'm still tweaking the menu - I think I might have to make some room for the mushrooms and "bug bites"....

Thanks so much for sharing!