Host the Perfect Halloween Party

Ghosts, goblins, and ghastly witches - sounds like the ideal group of party guests! Show them all a frighteningly fun time by hosting the perfect Halloween party with your children. To ensure your party is a monster bash they'll never forget, include the following spine-tingling essentials.

Make sure to invite your guests in style. Then, give them a wicked welcome with Halloween decorations you can make with your kids, and add festive accents with black and orange balloons, tablecloths, and crepe paper. Create the perfect Halloween glow with creative jack-o'-lanterns -- carve out some sinister creatures with your family and display your work!

If you want to step the spookiness up a notch, you and your kids can transform your house into a haunted one:

• Set an eerie mood by switching your regular lightbulbs with colored bulbs or black lights.
• Turn your front yard into a graveyard with tombstones made from plywood and silver spray paint. Assign your children the task of coming up with clever epitaphs.
• Make haunting dummies and mummies by stuffing old clothes with newspaper and topping them off with homemade scary masks and fake blood.
• Stretch out some cotton batting for spider webs and fill them with the plastic creepy critters.
• Place morbid centerpieces and displays (think dead flowers and dusty candelabras) throughout your "haunted mansion."
• And the most haunting part of your house? Enlist some of your friends to hide out and scare your guests when they least expect it! (This tactic is probably best used only with older children.)

You can transform average party food into a real Halloween party spread with a little imagination and help from the kids. For extra-frightening fare, turn that macaroni salad into a "bowl of brains" and set out a dish of peeled grapes or olives for "mummy's eyeballs." Eww! Any kind of goop or glop will help add to the horror (think "blood and guts" salsa, guacamole, and hummus). Ask your children to get creative with naming the terrifying treats. See our list of Halloween recipes for more easy-to-make ideas. And don't forget the candy!

The real heart and soul of a good Halloween party is, of course, the Halloween costumes. Hold a costume contest and give prizes for the Most Creative, Scariest, and Best Couple costumes. Have your guests parade their costumes around the party and cast their votes for the winners!

Another classic and simple autumn party game for kids is bobbing for apples. Set the water bucket down and let the laughs begin. Also, make the kids work for their candy by hanging a homemade Halloween piñata, or gather the crowd for these other festive games.

An essential element of any celebration is music. For Halloween, think sound effects. To add to the spookiness of your creepy haunted mansion, play the sounds of howling, cackling, and bone-chilling screeches. Sound-effect CDs can be found in many party stores, or you can download them online! For the more lighthearted affair, boogey down with family and friends to some old-fashioned Halloween songs found on these CDs: Halloween Hits, Halloween Howls, or, for the little ones, Spooky Favorites.

The most important thing to remember for a successful Halloween party is to have fun and stay safe. With that in mind, you're sure to make your party the talk (or the scream!) of the neighborhood.