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The Book of Games and Parties for All Occasions
For Thanksgiving and Other Autumn Days
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A Harvest Freak Party
Let your guests have the fun of guessing what you mean by your invitation to your Harvest Freak Party. Hold it some November evening and trim your tables, rooms and piazzas with autumn leaves and flowers, and by tasteful arrangement of baskets of fruit and bunches of grapes suggest the beauty and bounty of the harvest season. The freak part will be a mystery until you explain it and prepare your guests for an hour or more of pure fun. Have prepared a shelf, covered with a curtain, and, after preparing and mystifying your company by an address which must conform, naturally, to such freaks as you have prepared, draw back the curtain. You can have a boat, labeled "The May Flower", made from a large yellow banana, with a decided stem, the latter being used as a prow. Cut a slice off the bottom so it will stand firm, or set it in sand, with a rock near by to represent "Plymouth Rock". Two pencils with bits of silk or paper make masts and sails. A primitive bird, the Lallapaloosa, may be made by using a summer squash and a turnip. The squash makes the body, the turnip the head and a stalk of celery makes a tail. Buttons may be used for eyes. The most comical combinations suggest themselves as one engages in this fascinating amusement. Provide for the assembly plenty of all kinds of vegetables, bunches of grass, buttons to be used as eyes, corn tassels and husks, sharp knives, balls of twine and scissors, and set them at work on freaks - your own being just for use as patterns or suggestions. Some remarkable combinations are sure to be evolved, and occasionally some artistic and ingenious mind puts together a work that may be a "classic". On page 330 you will see a row of quaint and curious figures - the Puritan housewife with her pumpkin pie, one of the Pilgrim Fathers bringing in his wild turkey for the Thanksgiving feast, an Indian, a corn-husk doll, a mounted steed, a farmer who stares as if he were having his picture taken, a squirrel, and, last of all, the Thanksgiving turkey - and all these are made of peanuts, corn husks, sweet potatoes and bits of paper. Don’t you see how the making of these figures might easily prove to be one of the diversions of the evening? The pumpkin-and-corn centerpiece and candlestick are good suggestions in case you wish to add just these decorations to your table without carrying out any special scheme. Offer a prize for the most original freak, the homeliest one, the prettiest and the one using the largest number of the various fruits and vegetables. Let the prizes be awarded by vote. It is the most satisfactory method. Another means of amusement which can be used in connection with this entertainment is a guessing contest. Guess the number of seeds in an apple, in a pumpkin or a squash; the number of grapes in a bunch; the number of apples in a peck; the weight of various fruits, and other curious guessing queries which all pertain to the harvest season. The evening will pass swiftly and might be closed by refreshments, all of which should pertain to fruits and harvest bounties. Cakes could be made for the occasion, and ice cream also in shapes of fruit or vegetables. A Chestnut Party Each guest was invited to a "Chestnut Party" at the home of Mr. and Mrs. _____, and the end of the invitation read: "Come prepared to read, speak, sing or play some 'chestnut'. You can imagine the fun that followed and the interesting program. One good-natured man played "Home Sweet Home" on the mouth organ, one couple sang "Silver Threads Among the Gold", one lady played the piano for the whole crowd to sing "Old Black Joe", and a real jolly young man started to speak a piece and forgot; he said that was the biggest chestnut he knew of. The house was decorated with chestnut leaves and burrs. The place-cards were chestnut leaves cut out of green paper with chestnuts glued on. Chestnuts in various ways were served as part of the refreshments. There were lively guessing contests. One prize was the book, "Opening of a Chestnut Burr" by E. P. Roe, and the "booby" prize was a box of chestnuts. Another way to arrange for an evening with "chestnuts" is to send the following invitation: Haste away in mirth and glee, Of course curiosity will be aroused, and those who respond to the invitation will find themselves in a room where stands the "Chestnut Tree". This is a large, leaf-less bough, and from its branches hang countless little brown packages the size of chestnuts. When all have arrived the guests are each bidden to pick off a "nut". When the nuts are unwrapped they prove to be squares of brown tissue paper, in each of which is a slip bearing the name of a poem or piece of music whose old age entitles it to the appellation of "Chestnut" Requests to play Robin Adair, sing "Silver Threads Among the Gold", or read "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight" are some of the well-known selections. The chairman of the committee announces that each will be required to render the song, recitation or instrumental music specified, books having been provided so that lack of memory will be no excuse. It is permissible, however, for the guests to exchange "chestnuts" with one another before the program is called for. The guests may also be invited to go a-nutting and collect the names of nuts and fruits which are represented upon cards placed about the room. The names may be readily illustrated by pictures cut from magazines, and mounted upon red cards, or roughly sketched. The following may be illustrated: Seashore (Beechnut), large box (Chestnut), stone wall (Walnut), girl making bread (Doughnut), woman churning (Butternut), girl serving cocoa (Cocoanut), the letter P and a can (Pecan), the figures 1492 and 1776 (Dates), a pine tree and an apple (Pineapple), two persons (Pear), a plumb line (Plum), a gauge colored green (Green Gage), a crab and an apple (Crab Apple), a straw and a berry (Strawberry). Partners may be secured by placing two large branches in the front of the room, one decorated with leaves of yellow paper, the other with red leaves. Each man present picks a yellow leaf, and each girl a red one. The leaves are correspondingly numbered. Ice cream with chestnut sauce, nut cakes, nut candies and salted nuts will be sufficiently elaborate for refreshments. A Football Dinner Suspend over the center of the table a foot-ball, using the colors of the team. Beneath it arrange a mass of chrysanthemums’. For favors use miniature foot-balls such as may be purchased. Place cards may be cut from brown cardboard in the shape of foot balls. Ice cream may be moulded in the form of foot-balls and rolled in ground nuts and cocoa to give realistic effect. The following menu could be served: Points (Blue Points) Goal Posts (Bread Sticks) Quarterback (Roast Quarter of Lamb) From the Gridiron (Broiled Sweet Potatoes) Rooters (Creamed Carrots) Footballs (Olives) Scrimmage (Macedoine Salad) Megaphones (Ice Cream in Cone Form) Necessary for a Successful Team (Ginger) Crossbars (Ladyhngcrs) Drops (Lime and Orange Drops) The Right End (to a Dinner) (Black Coffee) Thanksgiving Games Provide the guests with paper and pencil and have them each write a menu, the dishes of which should begin with the letters in the word "Thanksgiving". This is not so easy as it seems, and a sample menu should be given to convey the idea. It should be borne in mind that the dishes should as far as possible be of a character that would be in harmony with the usual dishes served on this holiday. The following menu is given as a sample:
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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