Once you are too old to trick or treat, Halloween dinner parties are a fun way to celebrate the holiday.
You can dress up, serve some odd looking food, and spend time with your friends.
Here are a few ways to decorate for an unforgettable Halloween dinner party.
photo courtesy of Tori Siegel flickr.com/photos/toritoons/8161130133/
Outside
Decorate the outside of your home to set the mood for your Halloween dinner party.
You can use artificial spider webs, scary silhouettes in the windows, a smoke machine, flameless candles, spooky music, funny tombstones, or whatever else you like.
For less scary decor, opt for a fall theme with uncarved pumpkins and colorful mum flowers lining your walkway.
Also consider how you plan on handing out candy to trick or treaters without them constantly disrupting your dinner party - maybe you can leave candy on your front porch or have a teenager hand out candy for you.
You can even get creative and play a recording of the poem The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe read by Vincent Price that starts playing as people start walking up your walkway towards your front door.
photo courtesy of Mandee Sears flickr.com/photos/30190516@N02/7986885184/
Dining Table
Since it is a dinner party, the dining or buffet table should be the focal point of the evening.
Decorate your table with dripping candles, dry ice, owls and/or black birds, using tarnished silverware, displaying bottles with labels for potions or poison, using plastic vampire teeth as napkin rings, having a black tablecloth with a spider web topper, and whatever else you desire.
Consider covering your dining chairs with plain white fabric to make the house feel abandoned.
You can decorate your chandelier with spider webs and a few fake spiders.
You should dim or turn out the overhead light in the room to create an appropriate spooky affect.
You can drape scarves or other fabric over lamps to dim the light, just make sure they will not overheat from the light bulb or get too close to the electrical outlet.
Food
Halloween food should be creative and have a Halloween theme.
You can serve gourmet caramel apples, gummy worms, anything that looks like brains or eyeballs, a large sub sandwich in the shape of a snake, and/or food that looks like insects, reptiles, or rodents.
A crowd favorite food is a tomato topped with mozerella cheese topped with a green olive to look like an eyeball. Use a tiny bit of black olive for the pupil.
Another favorite is a pretzel stick with a marshmallow on each end dipped in white chocolate to resemble a leg bone.
You can also serve non-Halloween crowd favorites but add some plastic spiders on the plate or in the bowl for affect.
Be creative and label everyday food with a fun Halloween theme, such as peeled oranges with a tiny piece of celery at the top labeled as sweet pumpkins, raisins labeled as scabs, red gelatin labeled as blood, and grapes labeled as eyeballs.
A common fun idea is to freeze water in a latex glove to create ice in the shape of a hand. Use the ice in a punch bowl. You may want to make several ice hands to refresh the punch bowl throughout the party.
photo courtesy of Windell Oskay flickr.com/photos/oskay/5135202426/
Other Decorations
You should also decorate other areas of your home, not just the dining room.
Here are a few other ideas for Halloween decorations.
You can transform your family photos on display to give them spooky eyes or a ghost like appearance.
Also consider covering the rest of your furniture with white sheets to make your home feel abandoned.
You can decorate your home with specimen jars, vintage medical utensils, gargoyles, curiosities, and black or blood red flowers.
Using a black light or making items glow in the dark is a nice touch.
You might also like the articles How to Keep Pumpkins from Rotting and How to Decorate a Pumpkin Without Carving.
