While throwing a holiday bash in your home can seem like an overwhelming task, it doesn’t have to be.  Use our guide the process will go smooth, and kids for sure will have a fantastic time!

Send out Invitations

First things first, let everyone know you’ll be throwing a party. Parents need plenty of notice when they’re planning their kids’ schedules. Start planning six weeks before the big day and schedule your party to-do’s week by week.

Keep Decorations Simple

As I’m sure you know, Pinterest has a million different phenomenal party decoration ideas. Don’t overwhelm yourself with the best 28 ideas you find.

Regardless of how extravagant we think we need to get with our decoration, kids don’t have very high expectations; they just want to have fun.

Make Food Fun

Make food simple. A batch of these brilliant healthy Halloween nachos will go down a storm, served up either with guacamole or a pumpkin hummus centrepiece on the buffet table. Or, for a different idea, try spooky stuffed peppers – they’re much easier to carve than a pumpkin! (BBC Good Food).

Dracula’s blood punch and this eyeball & hand fruit punch will help little ghosts and ghouls to quench a deadly thirst. Don’t forget to accessorise your drinks with grapes, olives or lychees to make eerie ‘eyeballs’ skewered on cocktail sticks.

Let the children participate in some of the food preparation. For example, lay out a variety of toppings and allow each child to prepare his or her own personal size pizza.

Games

Games are an excellent way to keep kids busy during a Halloween party.

At your party you can run a few silly contests for awards like ‘biggest witch’s nose’, ‘best broom’ or ‘scariest fingernails’ so that everyone wins a little prize.

Browse some great Halloween Gift Ideas on Amazon.

Another option is to have children try to identify different objects while blindfolded. Cold spaghetti, Jell-O, gummy worms and peeled grapes all have interesting textures that lend themselves to squeals and laughter when playing this identity game.

If you’re looking for something a little less scary, go on a hunt for a ghost ship’s treasure chest – you could scatter clues attached to gold chocolate coins around the house leading to a hoard of ghostly goodies like cheap costume jewellery or bags of popcorn.

Source: BBC Good Food , Care 2019

Music

Putting an entire Halloween playlist together would take hours. Check out Spotify or Amazon Music for some pre-built playlists (but be sure to include “family” or “kids” keywords in your search). For instance, here’s a Family Halloween Party Playlist on Spotify and Kids Halloween Party Band on Amazon Music.

Keep it short

Young children don’t need a party longer than a couple of hours. They’ll get tired and cranky, then parents will get tired and cranky and it’s all downhill from there. And remember, there’s only so much that can be done in a couple of hours so keep the activities to one or two, keep the food to easy snack items, and it’ll be perfect.