You’re having a Halloween party and you want it to be lively and fun. But without 3 essential ingredients you just might be setting yourself up for a party that’s deader than a graveyard. You’ve come to the right place to discover the essential elements for Halloween Party success and how to implement them so that your party is one that your family and friends will talk about for years to come.

Halloween is all about masquerade, shadowy shapes, chills and thrills and fun. So the first thing to start planning for is –

Mood

Nothing brings a fun, adventurous, even mysterious, mood to your party faster than costumes. That’s what it’s all about with Halloween. At our Halloween parties we have one hard and fast rule—costumes are absolutely required. No one gets in without one. Most people like to dress up, so we require it of all of them. Some people have some hesitation about it. But if everyone knows that everyone else at the party will be in costume too it makes it so much easier to join in. And what is Halloween without the costumes? That’s what the whole holiday is about—masquerade definitely adds to the mood.

But how to make that happen? Here are some easy suggestions.

First, make sure that the invitation very clearly states that costumes are required and that anyone appearing sans costume will be given one, of our choosing, to wear. That warning alone has served us well and we have never had someone show up without a costume since we started putting that on the invitation.

Another fun idea for costumes is to assign a theme. You can request that everyone come dressed as pirates. Or that they dress as characters from “Peter Pan.” They could all come as inanimate objects. You can assign a period in history and have everyone come as cavemen, spacemen, or in medieval style. It’s a fun way to establish a theme and gear your whole party around it.

But, you may ask, what if someone does shows up without a costume? We have an assortment of dollar store pig or chicken noses. We give those guests one of those to wear. We also open our costume box to anyone. (Most people choose that route because the pig and chicken noses are really uncomfortable.)

Along with costumes, other mood setters you can use for Halloween are: drippy candles, glowing pumpkins, recorded sounds of wind, rain and thunder, spiders dropping from unexpected places, gauzy tattered fabrics, decorations in black, orange, purple, and green.

For some games and activities you will need full light. But for most of the party keep the lights low and play or visit by candlelight. Eating or buffet areas are given lots of mysterious mood by candle or lantern light. Create that “anything can happen” feeling that Halloween evokes. It’s all about mood, so play it up.

The next essential element required for a smash hit Halloween party is –

Food

Incorporate the bounteous, colorful foods of the harvest season. Use pumpkins, not only for decoration, but also in bread, soups and stews. They can even be used as a serving bowl. Squashes come in so many varieties, many of which are misshapen and warty and make fabulous decorations around the buffet table or as centerpieces.

Make your food more fun by giving Halloween names to ordinary food. Meatballs become eyeballs. Punch or cider is witches brew. Forks can be pitchforks and spoons, shovels.

Besides stews, breads, vegetables, dips, etc. be sure to include Halloween’s sweet treats: caramel corn, caramel apples, doughnuts, and of course bowls of candy.

The last, and course not least, absolutely essential element for your Halloween party is –

Fun

Even with lots of mood and fabulous food your party will be a dud if you don’t have some fun things planned to get your guests interacting. Our favorite way to get the party jumping is with group, interactive games. Something as basic as Hide-and Seek, even for adults, is lots of fun for Halloween. Charades is always a favorite. (See our website www.marylougames.com  for access to tons of great games for Halloween.) Plan games based on the ages, personalities, and the size of your group. We often invite whole families to our Halloween parties and play games that all ages can enjoy together.

Halloween wouldn’t be complete without some kind of costume, pumpkin carving, or apple dunking competition. Give dollar store prizes liberally and acknowledge people’s efforts to join the fun of the holiday.

Whatever you do, plan well, bring people together and have fun. Your party will be a great success! Happy Halloween!

MaryLou Bailey is the author of 4 books and numerous articles on all aspects of family fun, holidays, and games. Visit her web site http://www.marylougames.com for pages and pages of resources, games, and ideas for any holiday.