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The Book of Games and Parties for All Occasions
The Halloweeen Party
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Where Old Charms and Superstitions are Tried
Unconventionality is the keynote of Halloween fun. Do have everything different from the usual! Invitations written on post cards decorated with button-face freaks will be unique. When the guests arrive at the front door let a sheet-draped "ghost" flash an electric light, showing a card reading, "Go to the cellar door and follow the rope." The rope must be stretched through the cellar, up the steps to the kitchen, and then up a back stairway to the second floor. Dim lights are furnished by pumpkin and skull lanterns. As the guests pass along some one behind the furnace drops a metal washtub on the cement floor, and other startling sounds are heard. In the second-floor hallway an appropriately garbed witch directs the ladies and gentlemen into their respective dressing-rooms. Upon descending to the reception hall the witch makes each guest take the following vow: I promise that I will not shirk Charms and Superstitions In olden times many queer superstitions prevailed. One old charm reads: "Take twenty-five new needles and set them on a plate, then pour water over them. Those that cross denote enemies." This might be tried by all of the guests under the direction of an "old crone." Let each guest be blindfolded in turn and conducted into another room. Here he is turned around three times while he makes a wish. If when the bandage is removed from his eyes he "sees the new moon over his right shoulder his wish shall surely come to pass." So the old adage goes. The new moon is made of gilt paper, and each guest is turned around so that he cannot fail to have a fortunate omen. Another queer old superstition says: "If any one tells you anything and shortly afterward you have to sneeze it is a true omen that what was told you is true." The "old crone" tells this sign to the guests, and each has the opportunity of telling something to some one. Then the crone waves her magic fan, which is in the shape of a cat and has some snuff on it, and a general sneezing ensues. Even the family cat may take part in this performance, for the sneezing of a cat was thought in olden times to be an omen of good luck to all who heard it. The throwing of an old shoe after a bride is a relic of an ancient belief which was applied to any one who was about to undertake something new. Let all of the guests go through motions in pantomime showing something in which they hope to succeed. While so engaged the witch blindfolds one of the players and gives him an old shoe, which he tosses from him. The one whom it strikes is to be favored above all others. A baby’s shoe should be used. While the guests are wondering what will come next a great paper spider descends on a silken thread from its web of cords in a corner of the ceiling. According to the old superstition the one on whom the spider descends will shortly inherit a large sum of money. For a jolly Halloween game scoop out a very large pumpkin and make a Jack-o’-lantern face in it, with an especially large mouth. Put the lantern on a firm table at the end of a hall, or in a large room, being careful not to have breakable things near. Give each person a small soft ball, and in turn let each try to throw it into the mouth of the lantern. Every time a player is successful he or she is given a funny Halloween favor. Popcorn balls, lollipops and pumpkin stickpins are among the favors most appreciated. For a novelty in refreshments the hostess might place on the table a quantity of crustless bread cut for serving, with plates of ham, tongue, anchovy paste, jelly, olives, cheese, etc., letting each lady, as her "work," make up the sandwich her partner likes best. Serve ice cream in Jack-o’-lantern orange shells. When the guests are about to depart the hostess says she will give each "a good-night kiss," and passes a plate of candy kisses. Upon being opened each is found to contain a slip of paper on which is a "fortune." Weird Settings That Add to the Spookiness of the Frolic At the entrance on the front porch two jolly scarecrows welcome the arriving guests, and the decorations of corn shocks, pumpkins and autumn leaves help to put one at once into the spirit of the evening’s fun. Doors and windows may be converted into transparencies by covering them with yellow tissue and pasting on cut-out ghosts, Jack-o’-lanterns and pursuing witches. If the guests are received in a dimly lighted room, with all the windows thus decorated and a lantern hung outside of each, the effect will be indescribably weird. The doors should be lighted from the inside. An effective paneled screen is decorated to represent a brick wall along which black cats prowl, while the silhouetted heads of prowling witches are visible over the top. A flight of bats and a beaming moon fill the sky, and the base of the wall is trimmed with paper pumpkin vines and grinning "Jacks." Telling fortunes is an indispensable feature of the Halloween frolic, and an easy and effective way to contrive a booth for the seeress is to utilize an archway between two rooms. An ordinary folding-clotheshorse draped with sheets forms the back and sides, and the front is draped with black crepe paper dotted with ghostly figures. Below the roof of fringed festoons is a frieze of owl heads, and an owl and twining paper snakes symbolize wisdom and subtlety on the tripod of the incense burner whence the pythons is supposed to derive inspiration. Standing sentinel at the foot of the stairs is a witch, the newel post forming her "skeleton." At her feet a black cat crouches, and above her head a fat green and black spider has spun a giant web in whose golden meshes winged bogies are entangled. Cornstalks bank the balustrade, and the wall is hung with fringed festoons in autumn colorings, whose ends are held by wooden plaques decorated with gummed stickers of witches and bats. If the fireplace is only an ornamental one a pretty decoration is afforded by swaying fringes of livid gray crepe paper from which peep grinning bogy faces, while Jack-o’-lanterns on the mantel furnish illumination when the lights are lowered. The paper is fireproofed and may be used if one so desires above the hearth fire where Halloween fun so largely centers. A Novel Invitation The lines below beginning "Now what on earth," are intended for a homemade invitation. Cut a piece of yellow paper twenty inches long and four inches wide, and in each inch write one of the lines. Then begin at the bottom and fold the paper up inch by inch. Fasten the last turn-down with a spooky gummed sticker, slip the invitation into a little envelope, put another sticker in the upper left-hand corner, a stamp in the upper right, address and mail it, and there will be no question that "everybody will be there." NOW WHAT ON EARTH
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Extracted from "The Book of Games & Parties for All Occasions". Download the complete ebook from SuccessEsource.com for $5 (PDF format). 
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