Halloween parties for adults

Halloween is one of those holidays that doesn’t seem like a real holiday, kinda like you’re playing hooky from adulthood. And the fact that you’re allowed to play dress up gives credence to the term “never too old to play.”

If there ever is a time when adults can let it all hang down, it’s at a Halloween Party.

For more fun, set the party in the backyard, preferably in a wooded area. Have a bonfire burning in the middle of the wooded area so that guests will eventually spot it and make their way out through the brambles and whatnot. It gives party-goers shivers to arrive at an empty house and find out they have to walk back into the woods searching for everyone else. The element of suspense will bring your party up to snuff in a big hurry.

You might have to decorate with pumpkins and corn stalks along the way to the fire so no one gets lost. Add dry ice, and just enough candles for an eerie atmosphere. Set up a makeshift coffin in the woods and have one guest come dressed as Dracula. He’ll love scaring newcomers on the path.

Freeze eyeballs made out of gum in ice cubes for another fun effect, and have a huge caldron filled with them next to the drinks. Serve Bloody Mary’s and Screaming Something-or-Rathers. Give your guests a challenge, set up store bought cobwebs throughout the woods and along the fire area. Make sure you have three witches you can trust to dance around their caldron suspended over the fire where a Hobo Dinner awaits. Puts lots of veggies in the soup, but carve them to look like eyeballs and fingers and ears. Leave nothing to the imagination. It’ll be dark to begin with, so it shouldn’t take much of an artist to fool guests.

Use chocolate covered bugs–or fake chocolate bugs–depending on how daring you care to be, on the chocolate cake. Hide gummy worms inside cupcakes and keep the punch spiked with ice-cubes filled with black spider rings, or big huge flies. Cut the band part off the rings before you freeze them in the ice cubes. Make sure they’re large enough that danger of swallowing is not an issue.

Keep the picnic table cleared off and covered with white paper. Stick snake heads and part of their bodies up through the slates of the boards and up through the paper. In the dark it’ll look quite sinister. Place rubber rats and mice in and around the tables.

Of course, no party would be complete without a howling wolf in the distance–use a tape recorder and place it somewhere near by, but far enough that no one will see it. If someone you know is willing to wear dark clothing or a scary costume and sneak in and out, making a rustling sound and never quite appearing, that’s great, too. This person could carry the tape recorder and make it sound like the wolfs are coming closer.

You also need the loud, unnatural laugh. That laugh puts fear in everyone, especially in the dark, in the woods, where you’re eating finger-shaped potatoes.

All the food should be symbolic of something eerie or human shaped. If you know someone who wouldn’t mind sitting still most of the evening, make a body cake with a real head stuck up through it. Maybe his or her partner would be willing to keep the head fed and free of thirst all evening.

Remember, the name of the game is to have a party that is both enjoyable as well as memorable. As always, safety comes first. Do have enough light around so that no one trips and is injured. Do not put dry ice into the punch or Hobo Dinner. Dry ice is dangerous. Use it in places away from human contact. Do not use anything in the soup or punch that is not edible or is small enough to fit into the mouth. Choking hazard is always present.

Aim for good, clean fun, and enjoy yourselves.