Medieval Dinner Party – The Big Day

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! After six weeks of prep (see all the prep details here), the big day finally arrived! The decorations were up, costumes were donned, games were set up, food and drinks were prepared. Let the festivities begin!

The evening began with a candlelit dinner. As was customary in the middle ages, we ate with our hands, cloth napkins at the ready. Medieval music played throughout the night (see link to the Spotify playlist in the Prep post).

Here’s a link to a video (40 seconds) taken before the guests arrived to give you an idea of the ambiance!

Guests arrived in costume. We had a varied group: Gypsies and a peasant who arrived via caravan from the eastern land of New Francia (aka Montreal, QC), some local lords and ladies in waiting and even a monk!

Before guests arrived, the sun was still up.

My husband Lord Christopher and I, Lady Valerie

The beverage station – sorry for the blurry pic!

Party favors: Fruit gummies, chocolate-covered almonds and peanuts in the shell

After dinner, we headed to the Tournament Grounds (aka the livingroom). Everyone got to take a practice turn for cornhole and ring toss, then the real games began! Each guest had three turns on each game to accumulate as many points as possible. The guy and girl who had the top scores got a paper crown and had a face off on the ring toss game (made more difficult by making it further away). Lord Adam and I (Lady Valerie) went head to head and Lord Adam was the tournament champion!

Lady Sienna playing the ring toss

Lady Christina’s turn!

The score keeping tablet (no pens or paper in the middle ages!)

It was a really fun evening! I’m a sucker for a theme party and love planning all the little details to make it really great. I’m already looking forward to the next one! 😀

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Medieval Dinner Party – The Prep

It had been a few years since I had thrown a theme party. With Thanksgiving around the corner and family planning to coming to visit, I had the urge to make it special. The idea to do a Medieval theme started from the turkey and my niece’s love of turkey drumsticks, and it all evolved (or maybe spiraled) from there! Most folks who know me know that once I get an idea in my head, I go all in and this party was no exception.

The planning started 6 weeks before the big day. First up were the invitations. The internet makes it so easy to find inspiration. I still had parchment paper from the Harry Potter party from a few years ago so I used that to print out the invites to a Medieval Feast.

I also used the parchment paper for the place cards and party favor tags.

Next up was the menu. I knew I wanted to stay true to the theme so no utensils would be used and we’d have cloth napkins. I started gathering nonperishible items every week leading up to the party and got the fresh items 1-2 days before. The final menu consisted of:

• Turkey drumsticks
• Mini cheese and spinach pies
• Charcuterie: Salami, prosciutto, etc.
• Cheese, cut up for easy eating: Old cheddar, smoked cheddar, Oka, Saint Paulin and an English port cheese
• Garlic bread
• Pickles and gherkins
• Red and green grapes
• Almonds, walnuts and dates
• Dessert was homemade ginger cookies and some store bought pastries
• Beverages included red wine, cranberry wine, strawberry lemonade and water

Next: The Games. You can’t have a Medieval party without a tournament! Initially this was going to be outside but once I realized the sun would set before dinner, I decided to transform our living room into the “Tournament Grounds”. I wanted old-fashioned games (and jousting and archery were out since this was now inside) so ended up getting a wooden cornhole set and a ring toss set (wood and rope) which I transformed into a standing shield using cardboard, foam board and an easel. I made bunting using red, yellow and blue construction paper and twine. I bought a small slate tablet to keep score with chalk (no pens or paper in the middle ages!). I made two paper crowns for the top scorers (girl, boy) in the tournament.

My helpers, the court jesters

The test run. Pardon the mess. 🙂

Next: Costumes! A quick Amazon search solved that pretty quickly. Ordered those with enough lead time. No delays.

Next: Decor! This was the big one. Amazon came through once again for the castle wall decor. I put it up the week prior using painter’s tape so as not to mess up the walls. It was a 30 foot roll of stone wall, plus a separate set of decals for windows, a door and torches. I made actual torches from construction paper, tissue paper and flickering LED lights (also from the Harry Potter party). I made a castle gate from duct tape and a drawbridge from cardboard and construction paper. And a sign post pointing to the various areas. Thank you Pinterest! I put everything up (LEDs not lit to save the batteries) the week prior and made tweaks throughout the week (more tape, stronger torch holders). Our neighbors must have thought something sinister was going on LOL

Prep station. Helpers always at the ready!

Here’s how I made the torches. Take one sheet each of red, orange and yellow tissue paper

Fold in half and cut out flames

Unfold and cut down middle. This made two sets of flames for 2 torches.

Stagger the sheets

Roll the sherts, gathering the bottom

Tape around the bottom

Pop the flames into a torch (just rolled a piece of black construction paper)

So cute!!

Add the LED light. I just propped it in there.

They flickered like flames

The signpost was two wrapping paper rolls taped together and wrapped in ribbon. Parchment paper signs. Castle gate and drawbridge.

Next: The music. I found a Playlist on Spotify of Mefieval music and made some adjustments. I made sure there were several hours of songs to last the whole night.

Link to the party playlist:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QwnRKT1n1gUrjHgMCGHxe?si=a74807f4cf8244eb

Next: The table. I dug up all the candles, jugs, carafes, lanterns, platters and serving dishes that I had that looked like they would fit the theme. It’s amazing what I had accumulated over the years! Most of the candles were LED but a few tea lights were real. I bought one leaf garland for the center of the table. I planned what dishes and glasses we’d use, the cloth napkins, and made the seating chart.

Next: Party Favors. I had paper bags and I made the tags, tied them with twine. I wanted some goodies that were a bit old-fashioned so in each bag I included three little packages: Some fruit gummies, chocolate-covered almonds and peanuts in the shell.

Leading up to the party, I emailed everyone a tutorial on how to speak in Old English so we could brush up on our “My Lords”, “My Ladies”:

Well met, friends!
 
Here are some tips to learn a few words and phrases ahead of the medieval party. I’ll be calling Chris “milord” for the next couple weeks. Lol
 
Common Verbs
Say “art” instead of “are,” as in, “Art thou coming?”
Use “dost” instead of “do,” as in “Dost thou play cricket?”
Say “hath” in place of “has” as in, “Hath she any bread?”
Add the endings “est” to many verbs. For instance, you might say, “Needest thou some assistance?”
 
Pronouns
Use the terms “thee,” “thou” or “ye,” instead of “you,” as in, “Thou must visit soon.”
Say “thy” or “thine” instead of “your” or “yours,” as in, “It is thy responsibility.”
Replace “I” with “me” in certain subject-verb combinations, such as, “Methinks thou art rude.”
 
Random Words and Phrases
Say “hither” instead of “here,” and “whence” instead of “when,” as in “Whence cometh thou hither?”
Replace “beautiful” with “beautious” or “fair,” as in, “The girl was beautious, yea, she was as fair as a rose.”
Use “yay” in place of yes and “nay” in place of “no.”
Say “naught” instead of “nothing” and “fare thee well” instead of goodbye.
 
14 Terms for the Renaissance Faire
1. My lord/My lady: My lord means “Mister,” and my lady means “Miss” or “Mrs.” For instance, your brother Jason becomes “my lord Jason,” and your cousin Ashley is “my lady Ashley.”
2. Master/Mistress: another set of terms for “Mister” and “Miss” or “Mrs.”
3. Good day/Good morrow: means “hello,” as in “Good day, my lady Ashley.”
4. Fare thee well: means “goodbye,” as in “Fare thee well, my lord Jason.”
5. Huzzah: means “Hurrah!” Used at jousts, shows, and the high points in court. (During court, only shout “huzzah” when invited to do so by officials of the court, as in “Three cheers for Lady Isabella,” or when everyone else is cheering.)
6. Thou/Thee: The words “thou” and “thee” both mean “you.” They’re just used differently. “Thou” is the subject of a sentence (the word that’s doing things), and “thee” is the object (the word that’s acted upon). For instance, “Thou art the man who will stand in line for turkey legs,” and “This turkey leg is for thee.”
7. Art: means “are.” “You are stuffing your face” becomes “Thou art feasting most enthusiastically.”
8. Aye: means “yes,” as in “Aye, that is indeed a man juggling cabbages…”
9. Nay: means “no,” as in “Nay, I hath no idea why he would want to do such manner of thing…”
10. Privy: the most common term used for the bathrooms. (Other terms that have at times been used include “the peasant potty” and “the royal flush.”)
11. Prithee: means “please.” (Do not confuse this word with “privy.”)
12. Gramercy/I thank thee: means “thank you.”
13. Wench: A wench is a particular type of woman, usually of the friendly or cuddly variety. Queens, princesses, and nuns are not wenches.
14. Bawdy: Bawdy is a term describing entertainment for a more adult audience. Songs or stories that are bawdy are suggestive but not usually blatant or raunchy, falling between a PG-13 and R rating at the movies. Bawdy shows may not be suited for children, although the better ones will probably go right over a child’s head.
 
Renaissance Lingo: Terms of Address
And now for the bonus round⁠—if you’d like to score serious style points, here are the official terms that are used to address people of rank. Remember and use these, and you are a true Renaissance scholar.
• Your Majesty is the proper term when speaking to a king or queen. For instance, “Good day, your majesty…”
• Your Highness is the form of address that is used when addressing a prince or princess, as in “Very well, Prince John.”
• Sir is the term used to speak to or about a knight, as in “Sir Bedevere is hot in pursuit of the Questing Beast.”
All other people may be referred to as my lord or my lady.

Phew! That was it, all in. See next post for pics of the party and how it all played out!

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Harry Potter Party Planning – Part 4 (Great Hall Decor and more)

For the past few weeks, my dining room has been m “party prep area”:

Luckily, we have a dinette area in the kitchen for meals and it’s just my husband and I. 🙂

I did a test run of the Divination Class décor. I found a dark purple double fitted sheet (still in package!). I used a set of white Christmas lights and laid them on the coffee table, then draped the sheet on top. I found a “crystal ball” at the dollar store – it’s really a clear plastic ball with sparkles inside it – it looked perfect! Once I got it home, I found out that if you bounce it, it lights up. Ha!  There will be no bouncing during Divination class (so as not to take away from the mystique of the crystal ball..lol). I put up the colour chart since we’ll be referring to it when we do our colorful magic soda spell.

I also finalized the bottles, jars and labels for the potion ingredients for Potions class:

Here are the ingredients:

• Gillyweed: Grass (just for fun)
• Boomslang: Powder detergent  (changes potion color)
• Mandrake Juice: Mix of water, yellow food colouring and baking soda (changes potion color and makes potion bubble up)
• Beetle Eyes: Dried red lentils (just for fun and sounds gross)
• Dragon Blood: Water and red food colouring
• Acromantula Venom: Mix of white vinegar and blue food colouring (changes potion color)
• Griffin Claws: Pieces of twigs/branches (just for fun)
• Phoenix Tears: Water and pink food colouring (just for fun)

The potion recipe I’ll be following is one I found online – I’ll be testing it out before the big event.

Recipe:

1. Pour 1/4 cup Dragon Blood into potion jar.
2. Stir in 1 tsp Boomslang.
3. Add 3 Beetle Eyes and stir 3 times.
4. Add one shake of Phoenix Tears. Stir 2 times.
5. Add 1/2 cup Acromantula Venom. Stir 5 times.
6. Stir in 1 Griffin Claw (use tongs).
7. Add 1 pinch of Gillyweed.
8. Carefully stir in one 1/4 cup of Mandrake Juice.

I may have to tweak that depending on how the test run goes.

I made Spell Books as well (I still have to staple them together):

First page:

First spell page – I found the definitions of all the spells online with the pronunciation and meaning of all the spells:

I also included a Potion Ingredients section:

And a Potions section:

I downloaded the fonts for the Spell Books, signs and Invitation materials from this site (Lumos, Hogwarts Wizard and HarryP) and used Blackadder (standard in Word).

 Great Hall

And now for the Great Hall floatin candles. After a few attempts to tackle these, I’ve decided to go with the below process. I’ll be hanging navy tulle from the ceiling and decided to hook on some LED tealights to recreate the magical enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall. This was one of my favourite scenes from the first Harry Potter movie and there was no way I was hosting a HP-themes party without these floating candles. Here’s what I did:

Start with an LED tealight (I got the warm white ones that flicker – for authenticity). Test it to make sure it works. I bought two boxes of 24 and will likely only use one box and they all worked (yay):

Turn it on its side and wrap a piece of double-sided tape all the way around it:

Next, take a piece of wire (I used 22 gauge brass wire – it was the thinnest I could find) and shape one end into a loop large enough to fit around the base of the flame:

Slip it over the flame, tighten it and shape the long part vertically:

Cut the wire to the length you want and make a hook at the top (to hook onto the tulle later). I cut them at varying length to create that random effect:

Next, get a piece of white paper (I cut 1/3 off the bottom of one regular sheet of printer paper for each candle) and roll the candle (remember it’s wrapped in double-sided tape) enough to make a tube:

Roll until the seam overlaps a bit (I didn’t want them to be too heavy since it would be hanging from tulle so I didn’t use the whole sheet):

Next, trim the sheet and tape the tube closed along its length (again, to keep it as light as possible, I just used three small pieces of tape instead of one long strip). And there you have it:

Now, since this is all pre-party prep work and you’ll need to turn the lights on the day of the party, make sure you have something on hand that’s long enough to turn on the candle from inside the tube – and adjust the length of your paper tubes accordingly. I used a chopstick:

Once it’s time to hang them, you can adjust the wire so it hangs straight. This is what it looks like lit (…just imagine it flickering…)  🙂

I’m ready to hang them, which I’ll only do the day of the party – I’ll post pics!

2 weeks until the party!

More to come!

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Harry Potter Party Planning – Part 3 (Some Decor)

Here are some of the items that will make up the décor of the Harry Potter party.

One of the stops for in the Hunt for the missing Golden Snitch will be playing music (tambourines) to Fluffy the 3-headed dog who will be guarding a trap door. See my cutout below I Googled “three-headed dog” and sketched out a larger version on 9 sheets of brown construction paper taped together, then drew over my pencil with black marker, then cut it out. I made a small envelope/opening in the door to hide the clue. 🙂

Once the girls find the Snitch, the reward is a trip to Honeydukes. A shelf in my dinette area in the kitchen will be a candy bar. Dumbledore will put aside some of the Harry Potter themed candies along with a note:

“To thank you for your hard work in helping to find the Golden Snitch, I’ve put aside some of my favourite treats just for you: Chocolate Frogs, Jelly Slugs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. While visiting Honeydukes, be sure to try all of their delicious treats! Thanks again for returning the Snitch – your wizarding skills and clever minds have truly saved the day!”

Below is the colour chart we’ll be using in Divination class when we practice the “Multicorfors” spell and see what colours the girls’ sodas change into. I found this chart on another blog – it’s such a great idea!

And here are the signs for the various shops in Diagon Alley where the girls will pick up their school supplies. I just printed out the shop logos, cut them to size and slid them into picture frames.

The note from Harry (which I’ll include in their invitations) will read:

“Dear Sienna and Maddie,

I was delighted to hear that you were attending the summer term at Hogwarts! I’m sure you’ll have a great time. As a special welcome gift, I’ve bought all of your school supplies for you. You can pick them up in Diagon Alley on your way to Hogwarts. Pay close attention in Potions class and take good care of your owls. I hope you get sorted in Gryffindor House like Ron, Hermione and I. Have fun!

Harry”

More details to come!

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Harry Potter Planning Party – Part 2 (Timeline)

I did lots of research online and read about tons of party ideas, what worked well and what didn’t. Finally this is my plan for the party. Since my sister and nieces will be arriving Thursday night and the party is on Saturday, my husband will take them out for lunch on Saturday to give me time to put up the decor and setup everything. I’m planning on doing all the prep beforehand so all that will be left are putting things out, hanging things up and putting my costume on (I’ll be Professor McGonagall). 🙂

Here’s the timeline and general idea of what will take place (more details of each “event” will come later):

Arrival through garage door (equipped with Platform 9 3/4 sign)

They will have to hand in their Hogwarts Express tickets at the door and once inside, they’ll enter Diagon Alley (the livingroom)

In Diagon Alley, I’ll be setting up different shop areas:

• Ollivanders: They’ll get to choose their wands (or vice versa: the wands will choose them!)
• Flourish and Blotts: They’ll pick up their spell books
• Madam Malkin’s Robes for all Occasions: They’ll pick up their robes
• Eeylops Owl Emporium: They’ll pick up their owls
• Potages: They’ll pick up their potion jars (Unable to locate plastic cauldrons in June for the life of me, even online, so they’ll use jars – it’ll be cooler to see through anyway)

Once they’re dressed up in their gear we’ll have the Sorting Ceremony (yes, I have a Sorting Hat). Once we sort them into their houses and everyone is ready to go, let the classes begin!

First Class: Divination held in the Gryffindor Common Room (aka the den)

• Fortune telling with crystal ball
• Practicing a change-color spell with magic sodas that will tell the future (more on this later)

Second Class: Potions held in the cellar (aka the basement)

• Make a potion (I found a recipe online that will change the potion’s color a few times and make it bubble up – I think the girls will love it)

Third Class: Transfiguration — this class will be interrupted by Snape (my husband) bringing a scroll from Dumbledore announcing that the Golden Snitch has gone missing (gasp!) and any student that aids in its recovery will get a reward.

Scavenger Hunt for the Golden Snitch

• They’ll go from clue to clue in the various areas of the house including looking for Moaning Myrtle in the girls’ lavatory, playing music to Fluffly the 3-headed dog to open the trap door, and peering into the mirror of Erised for the next clue.
• After finding the snitch, the reward is a trip to Honeydukes (as long as they have their signed permission form!)

Trip to Honeydukes (aka the dinette in the kitchen)

• The reward from Dumbledore will include authentic HP candies: Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and Jelly Slugs
• Other candies to choose from (I made up some and found some others online) will include: Acid Pops, Unicorn Horns, Sugar Quills, Hippogriff Poop, Dragon Eyes and Pixie Wands

Dinner in the Great Hall (aka the dining room)

• I’ll be “enchanting” the ceiling with navy tulle and LED “floating” candles
• Dinner will be simple – chicken, potatoes, salad
• Cake for dessert (Hagrid will have dropped it off earlier)

And that’s the plan!

I’ll post more details for each event as well as pics a bit later.

 

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Harry Potter Party Planning – Part 1 (Invitations)

As soon as I learned that my nieces were old enough to start reading the Harry Potter books, the creative juices started flowing with plans to host a Harry Potter-themed party when they came to visit in July. That gave me about 1 month to scour the Internet for ideas, templates and supplies and 2 weeks later, I’m happy to say I think I’m all set.

First step was the invitations. There are tons of sample Hogwarts Acceptance Letters out there, including the actual text from the book as well as various tweaked versions online for birthdays and other parties. I chose to use the following, printed on parchment with the Hogwarts crest at the top for authenticity:

The text:

===

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

 

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

 

Dear Miss Sienna xxxxxxxx,

We are pleased to announce that you have been accepted into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for an elective mid-summer session in Potions, Divination and Transfiguration. Classes will be held on Saturday July xxxx 2014 from 2:00pm to 5:00pm followed by dinner in the Great Hall.

Since the surrounding area is well-protected by Memory Charms, it will be safe to wear normal wizard attire, however if you prefer you may come incognito and arrive dressed in the Muggle manner.

We are looking forward to your arrival at Hogwarts. Please confirm your attendance by replying by owl. If your owl is indisposed, you may send a text via the Muggle telephony system at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Sincerely, 

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts Academy

===

Also being sent with the letter is the Uniform and Equipment list:

The text:

===

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 

 

First year students will require:

 

Uniform:

1 set of plain work robes (black)

Other Equipment:

1 wand

1 potion jar or vial, size 2

1 ticket for the Hogwarts Express (included in this letter)

1 permission form for Honeydukes signed by a parent or guardian (included in this letter)

      

Books:

The Standard Book of Charms, Spells and Potions

 

Students can also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad.

 

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS!

===

Since the first phase of the party will be the girls shopping at Diagon Alley (aka my living room) for their supplies, this is mainly for information purposes. My plan is to send a separate handwritten note along with their letters from Harry himself saying that he was so excited when he heard they were coming to Hogwarts that he’ll be providing their supplies as a welcome gift and they can choose whatever they like in Diagon Alley. 🙂

I thought it would be cool to include a permission form for a visit to Honeydukes (there will be a visit to Honeydukes (aka my dinette area) at the end of the party).

The text:

===

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

 

PERMISSION for VISIT to HONEYDUKES for

 

Sienna

 

This document hereby serves to state the aforementioned first year student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is permitted to visit the candy shop Honeydukes at such a time that the school organizes, and with the signature of the undersigned parent or guardian.

The student will abide by all such rules & regulations relevant to all such expeditions and set by the school as per article 528/Z of the 1714 Edict. 

 

Print Name: __________________

 

Relation: _________________

 

Signature: ___________________

  

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

===

For the envelopes, also parchment, I printed their address “The bedroom at the top of the stairs” and found some cool looking Owl postmarks (being careful to change their placement on each envelope so they don’t compare them):

I’ll be shipping the envelopes in a larger envelope to my sister so the “real” post office stamps won’t ruin the effect. 🙂

These Hogwarts Express tickets will also be in their envelopes:

Stay tuned for more posts about the planning process, prep and pics of the event!

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The Oscars

The award show season continues with the biggest one: The Oscars! They’re announcing the nominations tomorrow morning. I’m hoping Avatar gets uber nominations and James Cameron (yay he’s Canadian) wins and is forced to top his “king of the world” speech from Titanic (“I’m the king of Pandora” perhaps). I hope Meryl gets nominated and wins for Julie and Julia because if a movie about cooking wins an Oscar, all is right with the world. I think Jeff Bridges is also due for an Oscar win.

This year’s show will be hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin – they’ll probably be hilarious – on Sunday March 7th.

I remember having an Oscar party one year and it was really fun: guests had to submit their Oscar ballots ahead of time and we tallied up the points as the night wore on, calculating everyone’s correct guesses and the winner won a prize (I believe it was several different types of popcorn).

We also played Oscar Bingo where everyone had a random Bingo card where all the spaces on the card were events that occurred and you had to watch out for them during the show (i.e. someone thanks God, someone thanks the Academy, someone’s speech gets cut off by the band, someone cries, they show Jack Nicholson in the front row, nominee not present, etc.). A one-line Bingo won movie candy, a full-card Bingo won something else..can’t recall what.

Games like those made the loooong show much more fun and exciting.

They actually have all these things (ballots, bingo cards, etc.) on the Oscar site (link above). The posted ballots right now are still last year’s but they’ll probably be posting new ones once the nominations are revealed.

Enjoy!

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Halloween Party Ideas

I love Halloween. It’s such fun to dress up, be a little nutty and act like children. Once a year can’t hurt. I’ll always remember the Halloween party I hosted one year. We were still living in the 3 1/2 apartment at the time and I went all out to make the living and dining room area as creepy as possible. Here are some of the things I did to make it Halloweeny:

The decor:

• Bought a large box of black garbage bags, opened them to full size (you can pull them apart), then covered all the walls and ceiling (use tape or tacks) so that the whole place was a black cave of doom.
• Spider webs: Picked up a few bags of webbing (not the fluffy ones, you need the stringy ones that pull apart really nicely) at a party store. I then strung spider webs all over the black walls and ceiling, around the ceiling lights, everywhere.
• Plastic spiders: Stuck them here and there in the spider webs. Also had some hanging down on a string of web in strategic places.
• Covered all the furniture with white sheets so it looked like an old abandoned home.
• The whole area was lit with candles only.
• Played creepy Halloween music / noises for background ambiance.
• Hung a skeleton in the bathroom so people would walk right into it when they opened the door. Stuck a spider on the toilet seat so anyone lifting it would get a scare. 🙂

The table:

• Covered the entire dining table with newspaper.
• Rimmed all glasses with a corn syrup and red food coloring mixture, then turned them over so it looked like they were dripping blood. This was a really cool effect. The corn syrup hardens so the drips look really cool.
• A few days before the party, filled a rubber glove with water and a couple of drops of blue food coloring, tied it shut with an elastic band and put it in the freezer. The day of the party, removed the glove to reveal an ice hand. Filled a large punch bowl with juice and floated the hand in the middle of it. This was pretty cool too.
• Had a big loaf of crusty bread on the table with a huge knife sticking out of it.

The entertainment:

• We played a game called Nightmare. This is a really old game and I don’t think they sell it anymore. I found my copy on Ebay. It’s a cool Halloween game.

 We had a  great time. Hope these ideas come in handy for someone else in the Halloween spirit!

Chris and Nick dressed up for Halloween (Chris was some kind of ghoul and Nick was Osama). This is the only pic I found of that event.

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