Saturday was our annual Gathering of Ghouls!  Our friends arrived just before sunset to an evening full of Halloween themed games and treats.

Costumes were a requirement!  Those that arrived without a costume were ordered to the dungeon (basement) where the were promptly dressed by the children in the house.  (We keep a large supply of dress up clothes and old Halloween costumes for occasions just like this!)  Every year there are a few that wander in un-dressed. The kids couldn’t wait to get their hands on them.  This year they created a construction worker costume, using Little Jr. Tools and the matching tool belt, paired with my old hard hat.  They also somehow managed to squeeze a 6’6” man into my old Morticia costume.

For dinner we had Fred, the Carcass of The Beast, bat wings, zombie melon brain,  hummus grave yard, Witch’s hats, fingers, and toes, veggies and dip, couscous salad, and more.   I spent the days prior to the party preparing the food.  I whipped up Fred (pictured above) by slathering my favorite cheese ball mixture on a sanitized skull then topped him with Budding Beef.  I was supposed to insert hard boiled egg and olive eyes.. but lost track of time and forgot the day of the party.  Oops!  The Carcass of the Beast was fairly easy to make as well.  I used a small (new and sanitized) trash can and cut it into a rib cage.  I then covered the exterior with expanding foam.  Once that dried, I sprayed it with watered down red, brown, black, and purple paints.  The day of the party I lined the rib cage with foil and filled it with pulled pork.  It would have presented a bit better laid onto a silver platter lined with greens, but again – that pesky time thing.   The Bat Wings were fairly simple; I love that the sauce gives them a black glaze, perfect for a bat-ish look!  The Zombie Brain was easy, but time consuming.  It is a small ball watermelon, carved to look like a brain.  It took several hours to complete due to having to remove all of the green skin then carving the white flesh to look like wrinkles in the brain, with pink melon showing through between the whitish brain curls.  It was worth it though, it looked great and tasted yummy too. I also made a bleeding eyeball cake… I used the Wilton ball cake pan and a quarter sheet cake pan.  I filled them with red velvet cake and once cooled I cut the top off of each half of the ball cake sides… which were going to become my eyeballs.  I hollowed out some of the 1/2 balls and then iced the interior with royal icing.  I filled the hollow area with raspberry sauce (a simple sauce made with puree’d raspberries, strained to remove the seeds, blended with powdered sugar to taste) I then reapplied the top of each ‘eye’ and then did a crumb coat of royal icing.  Then I placed the eyes on the sheet cake and ice the entire cake.  I let it sit over night and the next morning I hand painted, using icing gel colors, a small paint brush and water, directly onto the icing.  It had crusted overnight which made it easy to paint.  I added veins, an iris and pupil. I was going to make rounds of clear gelatin for the iris/pupil and paint those with icing color, but ran out of time.  I think it would have looked far more realistic… but what I did end up doing worked great as well.  I pulled the plastic covering off of my son’s zombie gloves and used the zombie hands to  hold the eyeballs on the cake.  I poured, very carefully, red icing color around the eyes to look like dripping blood and used black reflective sprinkles on the rest of the cake. The hummus graveyard was simple and quick.  I found the idea and recipe in Family Fun Magazine.  Of course we had punch too… blood punch.  I poured ice into a very large cauldron  then set a glass punch bowl inside, filled with strawberry-kiwi juice.  The ice lightened up the inside of the cauldron which helped to show the red tent of the  Blood Punch.  I then put hands and a face made from ice inside. These were very easy to make.. simply fill two, wellwashed, latex gloves with water and freeze, do the same for a cheap face mask with the eye and mouth holes covered.  Floating the ice face/hands in the water adds a nice effect, as the face/hands melt, your victim appears to drown in the punch.  I found labels for condiment bottles, salt and pepper shakers, drink bottles, etc that said things like Black Widow Venom, Eye of Newt, etc I printed them on photo paper and applied them to containers/bottles/etc.

We also played a number of games.  All but one of the games were the same for both the kids and adult parties:

• During the kids portion of the evening we wrapped adult volunteers in toilet paper (for the older kids) and white streamer (for the younger kids) to create Mummies.  The kids broke into teams and raced to see who could cover their mummy in the least amount of time.
• Halloween Monster trivia game – I collected both well known and obscure facts on 13 Halloween Monsters
• Guess the Gross Body Part – Placing various houshold items and foods into plastic bags, covered with paper bags for a guessing game.  Some of the items used were:  a wet ball sponge (Brain), carved carrot bites (fingers/toes), pull apart Twizzlers covered with olive oil (intestines), popcorn kernels (teeth), torn up lunch meat (skin), peeled grapes (eyes)… etc

  This is me... trying to slurp down my jello

• Marshmallow Munch – Thread a string through a marshmallow and hang from the ceiling/door frame/bar.  Each participant held their arms behind their backs and had to eat the entire marshmallow, the first one to have the entire marshmallow eaten wins
• I ‘Vant to Suck Your Blood – I made thin sheets of jello jigglers out of cherry jello, each participant was given a 2×2 inch square (that is only about 1/2 in. deep) and a soda straw. The objective is to use the straw to suck up the blood (jello) The sound this game makes is quite disgusting, everyone couldn’t help but laugh our way though

We wrapped up the planned festivities at midnight with a Costume Contest.  I found ribbons for each category this year, but in years past I’ve given out trophies.  It all depends on what I find for that year.  The contest categories are:  Sexiest (adults only), Funniest, Scariest, Cutest, Most Original and Best Overall. I also gave out cardboard tags that I for Lamest and Halloween Slacker (no costume or took their costume off before midnight)  I’ve found these at novelty stores and stock up when I see them.

It’s our family tradition to hold the kids party from 6 to 8 and the adult’s party from 9 to whenever… this year we wrapped up just before 4 am!  Its always SO much fun!  After midnight everyone gets more comfortable, we kick off our shoes, some wash their faces and we settle in for a good game of Lunch Money, or whatever else seems to sound good at the time.  This year we also got into the Wii.  Have you ever tried to play balance games while drinking wine?  That’s awesome material for laughter and pictures!

Happy Halloween everyone!