Trick-or-Treat

One of my earliest memories is trick-or-treating as a cat one Halloween with family friends in Alice Springs.   I remember that we had a lot of fun running around the street asking the neighbours for lollies and sweets.   While my memory is a little fuzzy, I think I also remember a carton of eggs being put to good use when an older couple refused to give treats.

The origins of Halloween are somewhat unknown with many people believing that it’s pagan or Celtic roots stem from harvest festivals and festivals of the dead.  Many others maintain that Halloween has decidedly Christian roots and was a yearly celebration of All Saints’ Day on the 1^st of November. 

Either way, Halloween has become a decidedly commercial activity that has been strongly influenced by its popularization in North America over the last century.  Now, all over the world, people are beginning to celebrate the October 31^st event by observing traditional customs such as dressing up and trick-or-treating or, for the older crowds, holding costume parties decorated with faux spider webs, carved out pumpkin jack-o-lanterns and eyeball filled punch.

Here are my top 5 essential items for an awesome Halloween party:

1. A kick-arse costume! 

You would be surprised by the amount of people turning up to a Halloween party without a costume… people… if you are having a      Halloween party you need to dress up, or else it’s just an everyday house party.

2. Decorations

you don’t have to go all out, but a string of spiders or a few cobwebs here and there  will make the party a little more festive.  If you are prepared to      put in a little more effort, try for a spooky graveyard, a vampire’s lair or a haunted mansion for a theme.

3. Treats & Party food

You need a few sweets around for the trick-or-treaters that might come knocking, but also to share around the party!

4. Creepy Cocktails and scary punch

Recipes can be found online anywhere, or you can simply add candy worms or eyeballs to the punch for a bit of a surprise for the unsuspecting drinker!

5. A Jack-o-lantern 

If you are not confident in making your own from a pumpkin, then you can easily purchase a ready-made one or plastic one for the party.

 

This year, in carrying on with tradition, Dan and I prepared our costumes for a house party in Clapham, hosted by our good friend Ryan and a household of fellow Aussies. 

In 2011 Dan and I had attended a Halloween themed birthday party as Tilley and Jim Devine, the infamous brothel madam and organised crime gangstas from 1920s Sydney.   The characters had been showcased in the most recent season of Underbelly at the time and were the perfect fun costumes.  Unfortunately, with many of our friends in London having missed the last season of Underbelly in Australia, we were left to think of a new idea for the approaching party.

Popular costumes this year included the zombie cheerleader and blood spattered zombies.  But in the lead up to the party we decided on another ‘couples costume’ from the popular TV show How I met Your Mother.  For those that are avid watchers of the show you might remember from the 1^st season, the main character, Ted, waits at the same party, dressed in the same old costume, a hanging chad, hoping that the he runs into the “slutty pumpkin”  he met at a party years before.

So… Dan dressed in a ‘vintage’ brown swede jacket and meticulously prepared voting placard as Ted Mosby and I donned a skimpy pumpkin outfit from Escapade Costume Hire and froze in the 4 degree temperatures.

The night was so cold that when the fridge quickly filled to bursting we simply left our drinks out on the back table as a way to keep them ‘esky cold’.

It seemed that the likes of vampire TV shows, zombie apocalypse movies and the Avengers had made superheros, vampires and zombies the costumes of choice in London this year.  Wonder Woman and cheerleader zombies were out in hoards!  

 

First Published on: Nov 4, 2012 @ 16:58 #12monthhoneymoon