Every year our church puts on a "Fall Festival", aka Halloween Party. It's usually a big production. This year, our men's group, of which I'm president, was asked to host the event. I thought, "Sure, no sweat." When Mandy heard about it, she was a bit concerned, thinking it would be a ton of work, preparation and stress. And it would have been, if I had done it Craft Blogger Style.
| Craft Blogger Halloween Party | Man-Planned Halloween Party | |
| Planning | Fretting and planning since July. Multiple committees engaged for support. | Planned over two short phone calls and one online order to Oriental Trading Co. |
| Table Decor | Table cloths with hand-made centerpieces; table-top sprinkle confetti | None. Plain plastic tables clean up easier. |
| Games | Five or six games, each hosted in a classroom by a youth group class in lavishly decorated rooms. | Four games, hosted in each corner of the gym on plain tables by men pulled randomly from the crowd. |
| Prizes | Each game has multiple, fabulous prizes. | One prize per kid. Prizes are the items they use to play the games. |
| Time | Starts late, goes on forever. | Starts on time, ends 10 minutes early. 5:00 – 6:00 Dinner 6:00 – 6:30 Games 6:30 – 7:00 Trunk or Treat and DONE! (actual end time, lights out, doors locked: 7:05) |
Don't believe it's possible to host a successful party with no stress and almost no planning that stills goes over well? See the pictures below.
Kids enlisted to color game pieces.
Shoot the cups...
with...
rubber band lizards.
Catch the paper monsters (no Mandy, we don't need to laminate the paper monsters)
with sticky hands.
Print some signs to label the games. Use a boring font.
Games in action. Note the random game "volunteer" sitting in background.
Game set up. Note the fancy decorations.
Games in action.
Who did this numbering?
Like a boss!!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome!!
ReplyDeleteHaha! I need some pointers from you on our service Saturday! I'm only in charge of food and am getting nervous already! LOL
ReplyDeleteSee, my church had the same games every year at our harvest/halloween party. In ye dayes of olde, someone made their husband cut an enormous jack-o-lantern out of plywood for a beanbag toss game. My personal favorite was the game where they tied mini powdere donuts to strings, dangled them from a rolling coat rack and had us eat them without hands. Good times.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we called it a Halloween party when I was growing up but someone at some point raised a stink about how churches shouldn't have Halloween party and thus it became the "Harvest Festival." Which is still an excuse for children to wear their costumes.
Yeah, our church had "Fall Fest" and I got reprimanded one year for being dressed as a gypsy girl.
DeleteHaha you remind me of my husband. During my time as Primary secretary I was always stressing about making things cute and he was always getting on me that the kids don't care.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the kids had a blast!
ReplyDeleteYour "Fall Fest" sounds a lot like the way that I did my son's 3 birthday party. I put him and his friends to work decorating cans and stuffing beans in bean bags (the day before). Then after we did the can toss game then I gave it to him as a Birthday present. It gave him one more present and made time and resources worth it.
ReplyDeleteLove it!!!
ReplyDeleteI think Mandy would enjoy our church's festival more. our 80 game booths and 12 food booths rock climbing wall, pony rides, dog costume parade/costume and our pastpr manages to walk about greeting and dispensing 1000plus pounds of quality candies. oops I nearly forgot the live band. the booths come down and get put in storage on the same night ready for the next year. And it gets put up on a Sat before the night of the festival. the semi truck load of straw bales for the maze arrived yesterday.
ReplyDeletesorry about the typos
DeleteHilarious!!! Loved it. Perhaps we need a few more man planned church parties to balance out the ice sculptures.
ReplyDeleteHey this post just gave me a few good ideas for my sons birthday party. Thanks!
ReplyDelete