Between the school holiday and the French All Saints' Day / Toussaint, many of our friends were out of town and therefore we decided to wait a week to throw our Halloween bash. This also coincided with Guy Fawkes Night (although fireworks and bonfires were not destined to be a part of our party!). Well worth the wait, we also had extra time to prepare, as come Saturday morning we were expecting over forty people.
 |
| Boo! (Sans one princess and King Arthur) |
Being an official IWC mom and baby club event, we were able to utilize the IWC Halloween decorations, which also included a few themed games; perfect, because although some of the larger stores in Clermont sell Halloween costumes, the usual Halloween décor was nowhere to be found. Our work was cut out for us thanks to the attendees willing to bring a dish to share, so I just found black and orange plates at the party store, plastic cups and eating utensils, then jumped online to search for some fun ideas. I ended up with a version of Martha Stewart’s goodie bags (brown paper sacs were nowhere to be found so I used mailing envelopes), the “floating hand (of ice)” in the punchbowl, Halloween 2011 picture frames to add to the goodie bags (complete with picture of each child in costume taken at the party and printed out on my mini photo printer) and a pumpkin carved three days into November.
 |
| Photo credit (Halloween goodie bags) to marthastewart.com |
The dishes served were just as diverse as the costumes that came knocking at our door. We had pumpkin soup, pumpkin cakes, coconut cookies, eyeballs in Jell-o, severed fingers, mummy fingers, tangerines, a Polish fall specialty, chocolate cake and more. Everyone was in the spirit with cute, to scary, and everything in between.
 |
| My costume: Puy de Dôme. See the resemblance? |
Once the party got into full swing the games started; the kids really got into the dancing and “freeze frame” to Monster Mash, “pin-the-tail on the black cat” and face painting. Apple bobbing removed more than one face painting, and “mummy-wrap” were a few among the many games occurring (sometimes simultaneously) throughout the apartment.
 |
| Mommies... I mean daddies... I mean mummies! |
Although we are experiencing many new holidays here in France
That looks like so much fun! I wish we could have been there!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had some hard working Mummies!
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see another American expat enjoying Halloween overseas! I always think we can be Halloween 'ambassadors', showing people how to really turn it into a fun event. Nice to 'meet' you! I'm here from the Happy Homemaker UK blog.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Sounds like you did a really great job throwing a very cool Halloween bash. Did you manage to carve any jack-o-lanterns? I know you were saying you were having a hard time finding pumpkins there. I thought my cousin Mara did an awesome job carving a watermelon for Halloween where she lives. How did you manage to make a hand out of ice?
ReplyDeleteLa-La-Liene, thanks! The ice hand was just water frozen in a latex glove that had been washed. Note - be super careful when peeling off the glove, otherwise you'll end up with four fingers! And I did manage to find a pie pumpkin to carve, that's it in the second picture, squat and definitely more orange on the inside...
ReplyDelete