"It's all just a bunch of Hocus Pocus..."

Oh, Halloween. How I love thee.

Pete and I threw a Halloween party on Saturday night; lovingly nicknamed Spooktacular! Spooktacular! (Moulin Rouge? Harold Zidler? Anyone?)

"It will be Spectacular! Spectacular!
No words of the vernacular
can describe this great event,
you'll be dumb with wonderment..."

I have been longing to throw a Halloween bash for many years. It just never happened due to the fact that we were always dead broke and never had enough friends or neighbors to show up. After we moved here last year, we were really looking forward to whatever neighborhood/church Halloween events might ensue, plus a neighborhood perfect for trick-or-treating. Then when Halloween time came, Pete and I were kind of disappointed.  There were no parties, the ward "trunk-or-treat" was only fun for little kids because there were absolutely no activities for adults and hardly anyone dressed up or decorated their trunks, and then we discovered that hardly anyone trick-or-treats in our neighborhood because no one wants to buy candy for both the "trunk-or-treat" and for home. We ended up driving to a town 20 minutes north just to take Ryan trick-or-treating in an awesome neighborhood full of decorated houses and festive people.

So sometime back in September, Pete and I started talking about how we finally have a neighborhood full of friends who are (in our twisted opinion) in desperate need of some Halloween festiveness. So we decided it was time to throw a party.

I spent about one week coming up with ideas and then two weeks planning, shopping and crafting. Then,in addition to the party, I decided to take on the task of transforming myself and two of my friends into the Sanderson sisters from the classic 90's Halloween movie Hocus Pocus, so I was doing a lot of late night sewing mixed in with everything as well. I haven't had any creative projects since Kennedy was born (except for minimal work on Pete's ComicCon costume), so taking on the Hocus Pocus witches was pretty fun.

Here's the inspiration and the finished products...

I was so busy that I kind of forgot about invitations until the last minute...but luckily they turned out pretty well:

Given that invitations went out only seven days before the party, I was terrified that hardly anyone would come. Plus, there is this weird epidemic constantly plaguing the good people of Utah which causes them to not RSVP for anything, so I really had no idea how many people to expect. 

As usual, I overbooked myself and took on too much, so on the day of the party I still had to do homework that was due that night, bake cupcakes, makes sugar glass candy for the cupcakes, make frosting for the cupcakes, make poisoned candy apples, make banners, pick up balloons, donuts and cookies from three different stores and do hair and makeup with my fellow witches before Pete got home from work and we could start decorating for the party (there was a reservation before us, so we only had an 90 minutes to set up).  Unfortunately I did not end up having enough time to do all those things, so some decorations never got put up (God bless my friends Julie and Joy for their help or else a lot more would have never made it up either), the banners never got made, there was a scary incident involving red food dye being spilled all over my kitchen counter, and I wasn't able to put my costume on or do my makeup until the first guests had already started arriving. EEK!

But after I finally got myself turned into Sarah Sanderson, I ran back to the party and was happily overwhelmed to find it filled to the brim with people in great costumes, so much food that it wouldn't all fit on the food table, and my fellow witch sisters looking AWESOME. 

Here we are...

"Come little children, we'll take thee away..."

So after fearing that no one would come to my little party, over 80 people showed up! It made my little Halloween-loving heart so happy. We did games for the kids, a costume contest, a photo booth (that hardly anyone used...I'll have to rethink that one next year) and played The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hotel Transylvania on a big TV in the corner. Although I was so busy running everything and wrangling children for the games that I wasn't able to really hang out with anyone or eat any of the food, I heard that everyone else had a great time.

The one crappy part? Our camera must have been on some weird setting that I wasn't aware of, because all of our pictures are fuzzy and blurry. GRRRR. So if anyone has a pictures from the party that they would be willing to send me, please do.

We have such fantastic neighbors here - so many willing to not only show up, but show up in awesome and creative costumes, bring food, help out with games, hold our sleeping baby, and then several friends even stayed to help Pete and I clean up the giant mess when it was over. Seriously. You guys just keep making it harder and harder for us to entertain the plan of moving away next year.

So far Halloween has been a lot of fun, and it isn't even over yet! We still have our church trunk-or-treat on Wednesday, then taking the kids trick-or-treating on Thursday. Halloween season may all just be a bunch of hocus pocus, but what can I say? I love it.