The weather is turning cooler in some areas, and already the leaves have begun turning.  Soon, it will be Halloween!  Have you ever wondered how Halloween (also spelled Hallowe’en) came to be celebrated as we know it today?   Also known as All Hallows’ Eve and All Saint’s Eve, the holiday is celebrated on October 31^st worldwide.  It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (meaning “summer’s end”) and the Christian holy day of All Saints.  Today, it is largely a secular celebration, with little regard to the many traditions and rituals of hundreds of years ago.

Activities on Halloween include carving pumpkins (known as Jack-O-Lanterns), dressing up in costume and going door to door trick-or-treating, or attending costume parties.  Games like “bobbing for apples” is also popular, as is visiting “haunted houses”, playing pranks, and even sitting around a bonfire and telling scary stories.

It is thought that the prevalent colors of black and orange are associated with the holiday because of the darkness of night and the colors of fire, autumn leaves, or pumpkins. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows are also popular. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.  Some towns have annual pumpkin carving contests and house-decorating contests.  Still others hold an annual Halloween parade.

Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, magic, or monsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, bats, skeletons and black cats.  The use of costumes comes from the belief that wearing a costume will ward off evil.  Present day “characters” that can be seen running the streets on the evening of Halloween are any variety of cartoon personalities, superheroes, clowns, animals, politicians (see “cartoon personalities” and “clowns”).  I suspect that this year we’ll be seeing a lot of Vampires, Avatars and Toy Story costumes.     I often think of Halloween as the one day in the year you can dress up and be anything you want, if even just for one day and no one will think you’ve lost your marbles because everyone else is doing it too.

Retailers love Halloween – it has become one of the largest money making holidays ever.  You’ll notice that the Halloween decorations and supplies appear in stores right around (if not before) Labor Day.

Sometimes its hard to tell who is having more fun with Halloween – the kids or the adults.  Whatever you do this Halloween, enjoy yourself, be safe, and most of all, have FUN!!!

This is a great game for your Halloween party because you can never tell where the little Pumpkins will roll!

For a Kids Halloween Party, get the miniature pumpkins to fit their little hands.  For adults, I’d go with the small pie pumpkins or you might lose a lamp or two!

What you will need:

• 3 small Pumpkins
• 10 empty 2 liter bottles – labels removed
• White spray paint
• Black permanent marker
• Sand or gravel (to weight the bottles)

Preparing the “Pins”

• Rinse out the bottles and remove labels
• Spray paint the bottles with the white paint
• Draw Ghostly faces on the bottles with the permanent marker
• Put a cup or 2 of sand or gravel in each bottle so they’ll stand without falling over

How To Play

• Arrange “Pins” in a Bowling Alley Formation -
  • Back row has 4 pins
  • Next row has 3 pins
  • Next row has 2 pins
  • One pin in front
• Roll the Pumpkin Bowling Balls at the Pins and try for a Strike!

Variations:

• If you have more time, paint the “Pins” to resemble different monsters – zombies, vampires, ghouls, etc.
• Paint the bottles with a Glo Paint and play in the dark!

Let the fun begin!

Award prizes for strikes and spares, or give them a prize if they manage to just knock down one “Pin”!

This is a great game for Kids or Adults!  The first team to wrap their Mummy, wins!

What you need:

• Lots and lots of Toilet Paper!

How to play:

• Divide your party into groups of 3 or 4
• Have each group select one person to be the Mummy

The object of the game is to see who can be the first group to completely wrap their Mummy with the Toilet Paper.

Variations:

• Buy different colors of toilet paper and award prizes for creativity
• Give them a Theme – Bride Mummies!  Witch Mummies!
• Award a prize for lonest, unbroken strip of Toilet Paper
• Have some fun, Halloween music playing while everyone is wrapping their Mummy, then have a Mummy Dance-off at the end!

Kids always love relay games.  And this one has eyeballs!

What you will need:

• One Ping Pong Ball for each child – Painted to look like an eyeball
• One spoon for each team
• Jack-o-lanterns or other Halloween decorations to mark the course

How to play:

• Divide the children into teams
• Children must carry their “Eyeball” on the spoon and travel the course you have marked with the Jack-o-lanterns or other decorations.  No touching the “Eyeball”!
• When they get back to the starting point, the spoon is passed to the next child, until all members of the team have completed the course
• First team to have all members carry their “Eyeball” successfully, wins!

Variations:

• Play outisde and create an obstacle course around the yard, around shrubbery, over the dog house, under the patio table…or have someone pop out from behind a bush to scare them!
• Play inside and hang spider webs for the kids to walk through
• Set up a fan with streamers blowing that the kids have to walk by

The older the kids, the more obstacles you should create to keep it exciting!

Step right up!  Who can hit the Pumpkin?!

What you will need:

• Plastic Pumpkin or Ghost Trick or Treat Bucket
• Miniature Candy Bars or other small, individually wrapped candies

How to play:

• Give each child 3 to 5 pieces of candy and have them toss them into the bucket
• Kids get to keep the candies that go into the bucket

Variations:

• The older the kids, the further from the bucket!
• Play this one in the dark with scary music and a glo-in-the-dark bucket
• Attack a piece of thin fishing line to the bucket and have someone hide behind a piece of furniture to “mysteriously” move the bucket every now and then
• Use Ping-Pong balls colored like Eyeballs instead of candy – they bounce and will make it more difficult!  Award candies for getting a ball to stay in the bucket

Make sure to have “consolation” candies on hand for those who miss!

Give Pictionary a Spooky Twist!

What you will need:

• Chalkboard, erasable marker board or large pad of drawing paper
• a Timer or Watch
• Paper
• Plastic Pumpkin or Ghost Halloween bucket

Preparation:

• Before the party, make slips of paper with Halloween Words on them – Mummy, Vampire, Ghost, Spider, Witch, Haunted House….
• Place the slips of paper into the Plastic Halloween Bucket

How to play:

• Divide the group into 2 teams
• One player from the fist team selects a piece of paper from the bucket.  He then uses the chalkboard, marker board or drawing paper and pen to draw pictures relating to the word on his paper.  He can NOT draw the exact picture.
• The members of his team have 2 minutes to guess the word on his paper
• The other team goes next.  And then back and forth until all players have had a chance to draw
• The team with the most number of correct guesses, wins!

Variations:

• For adults, use the names of Horror Movies as the clues – Friday the 13th, Scary Movie 2, etc
• Use the names of Horror Movie characters as clues – Freddy Kruger, Micheal Meyers, etc
• Use types of murder weapons for the clues – axe, chainsaw, butcher knife, toaster in the bathtub!

What could be better than an Evil Twin on Halloween?!

What you will need:

• 2 Plastic Pumpkin or Ghost Halloween Buckets
• Small Halloween prizes or individually wrapped candies

How to play:

• Put prizes in the buckets and set them at one end of the room or yard
• Divide your guests into 2 teams and each team seperate into pairs
• The Evil Twins are formed by having 2 players from the same team stand back-to-back and link arms with each other.
• A set of Evil Twins from each team races to the buckets and each player must retrieve a prize – without Unlinking their arms! – then race back to their team to let the next set of Twins go.
• The first team to have all players return with prizes, wins!

This is a great first game at any Halloween party – for adults or children.

Variations:

• For children – Hang spider webs for the children to walk through
• Fill a baby pool with blown up balloons for everyone to walk through – have extra balloons ready to replace the ones that may pop
• For adults – have Jello-Shots on a table instead of prizes in the bucket – they have to do a shot, without unlinking, before they can head back