These are just a few of my favorite things about the Halloween Season:

• crisp, cool air and clear blue skies contrasted against blazing Autumn colors on the trees
• picking a pumpkin straight from a farmer’s field
• the Harvest Moon
• purchasing bags of candy while the good stuff is available and then trying not to eat it
• decorating the front porch with a jack-o-lantern and chrysanthemums
• watching the original “Halloween” on DVD for the umpteenth time
• seeing luminaries light up the pathway across the street
• receiving an invitation to a Halloween party
• driving around town to check out everyone’s Halloween decorations and voting on the best one
• making caramel apples (and eating more of the caramels than melting them for the apples)
• helping my kids with their Halloween costumes
• answering the door and seeing toddlers dressed as bugs and fairy princesses
• helping my kids check their trick or treat bags to see what they’ve brought home – hoping they’ve got something they’ll want to share with me.

What are some of your favorite Halloween memories and traditions?

Welcome to ScaryHalloweenFun.com!  Whether you’re planning the ultimate Halloween Fright Frenzy or just want to make the holiday a little more spooky and fun for your little ones, you’ve come to the right place!

You’ll find lots of ideas for Children’s Party Games, and  Adult Party Games as well as Halloween music and sound effects, to help make your party a Haunting Success.

Entertain the Goblins on your list by dusting off your cauldron and brewing up a batch of gooey, green Slime!

Need some help decorating the mansion?  Check out our Halloween Props and Halloween decorations categories!

Halloween has become one of the most celebrated holidays of the year, second only to Christmas.  We’ve come a long way from the days when we simply put a Jack-’o-Lantern on the front porch and sent our kids out Trick-Or-Treating in a sheet with the eyes cut out.

In this blog, you’ll find plenty of decorating, party, recipe and costume ideas to help make this Halloween the best ever!

Thank you for visiting my site – stay safe while you have lots of Scary Halloween Fun!

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” to the end of the course successfully wins!

Variations:

• Play outside 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!

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 31st worldwide. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (meaning “summer’s end”). In ancient days, the Celts dressed in crude costumes to celebrate Samhain. Samhain suggested the end of a harvesting period and it was also associated with human death. The ancient Celts believed that during the night of October 31st, the ghosts returned to earth to cause trouble to the human kind. So they burned animals and crops in a bonfire as a sacrifice to their gods while donning scary costumes made from animal skin and heads. Some Christians even today refuse to celebrate Halloween because of its history of pagan rites. 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 (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.

The prevalent colors of black and orange are associated with the holiday, it is thought, because of the darkness of night and the color 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”). This year’s favorites will likely include plenty of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Smurfs, Toy Story, Harry Potter and Vampire costumes. I often think of Halloween as the one day in the year you can dress up to be anyone or anything you want, if even just for one day, and no one will think you’ve lost your mind 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. There are plenty of uses for those Halloween props throughout the year too – at over-the-hill parties, given as gag gifts, or even in some classroom projects.

Whatever you do this Halloween, enjoy yourself, be safe, and most of all, have FUN!!!

Looking for Halloween music with a decidedly Irish twist perchance?  Then you should check out Irish Halloween Horror Songs by the Jack O’Lantern Band.  This product is manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com’s standard return policy will apply.

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