Happy Halloween!

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, Halloween is one classic American holiday that I’m glad we were able to celebrate with our friends, French, German, American, Polish, Italian or Greek. Although Lauris possibly won’t remember his spiderman costume, it was wonderful to watch all the kids having Halloween fun. Of course I won’t complain about the bagful of candy that I get to help Lauris eat either!