Boo bash: Planning your annual Halloween party doesn't have to be frightful

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Boo bash: Planning your annual Halloween party doesn't have to be frightful

Thursday, October 19, 2000

By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Revolution was in the air ... at least on the invitation. The coolest party I've ever attended was a Halloween theme party announced by mail with only the word "revolution," followed by the date, time and address.

(Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette)

Unlike most holidays, no religious or patriotic restrictions limit the interpretation of Halloween. Bounded only by law and the extent of my creativity, I can be anything I want that day and get away with it, no matter how irreverent, ridiculous, distasteful or stupid. Halloween is the only day in our PC culture when just about anything goes -- the perfect excuse for an adult party.

If you're lucky enough to know imaginative people who are willing to tailor their costumes to the concept, a theme party can be a blast that's talked about for years to come.

Take that "revolution" party thrown by Greensburg photographer Jonathan Nakles and then-wife folk singer Paula Purnell. With a concept like that, you might expect to see a bunch of George Washingtons hanging around the bar. But the artsy types on the guest list felt no obligation to limit themselves to the first dictionary definition of the word.

A physicist/musician who perceived revolution as a physical state showed up as an atom with a spherical electron spinning around his head. A Carnegie Mellon instructor came as revolutionary author Mary Shelley, whose "Frankenstein" has become a Halloween hit. I raided the Goodwill stores for a white suit jacket and slacks and pressed black vinyl 9's all over them. In my pocket, a micro-cassette recorder played the great sound experiment from The Beatles' White Album, "Revolution No. 9."

Eventually that annual party ran its course and after a couple of excruciatingly boring Halloweens, I resurrected it at my place. Over the years it has transmogrified into something that closely reflects my deeply warped personality. Your theme party should say something about you, like, "He's a laid-back guy with absolutely no taste," or, "She's a control freak, but she knows how to let her hair down."

Party basics

Socializing in costume is fun, but planning an adult Halloween party is no party. Scheduling a date is restrictive and competitive. By nature, Halloween comes at a time of year prone to drastic shifts in weather. A hard rain or first snow of the season could keep many of your guests at home. By definition, Halloween parties should be held on the weekend nearest Halloween. Weeknights are out; go for the closest Saturday.

If you haven't sent out invitations by now, they're a week late. Many potential guests will have already settled on where to celebrate. The advantage to making your bash a yearly thing with a core of regulars is that your annual party becomes their annual party.

A theme gives your guests something in common besides knowing the host. Conversations are easier to start among strangers sharing a costume concept. And if your guests have a good time this year, they'll be more likely to come next year.

I'm not sure which is the bigger bummer: not enough people or too many. I shoot for about 75 guests, spread over four or five hours in five rooms of my apartment. Try to invite clusters of people who know each other so that no one feels alone. Make it clear on the invitations that guests are welcome to bring multiple companions.

Your social scene may differ, but over the years I've noticed that about a third of the people show up and each brings an average of one guest. If I send out about 130 invitations, I can usually hit my mark of about 75 people.

Conceptual design

Themes shouldn't be too specific or to too obscure. Some hosts go with general suggestions, such as "The Movies" or "The Great Outdoors." I get more demented, spending time and money crafting invitations that set the tone for a bizarre concept.

One year the theme was the horrific torture and murder of a despised entertainment critic hated for his mean-spirited, scathing reviews -- me. Guests were mailed a parody of the front page of the Post-Gazette with a color photo of me lying in a pool of blood with a knife protruding from my back, traced in a chalk outline and surrounded by police "crime scene" tape.

The articles on the invitation reported my ritual murder, analyzed the implications of the word "critic" carved into my chest or "interviewed" celebrity suspects. Invitees were also sent replicas of Allegheny County subpoenas ordering them to be at my apartment on the night of the party to be questioned in the investigation.

Morbid? Sure, but appropriate only on Halloween. I walked around that night with a toy knife sticking out of my back. Some guests dressed as detectives or gangsters and one guy was a butler, as in, "The butler did it." A group of five came as characters from Clue, the board game, and one couple was costumed as a black-veiled mourner and the priest who would deliver my eulogy.

Y2K worries and end-of-the-world scenarios made last year's theme a no-brainer. Guests were mailed a bulky package postmarked with an Israeli return address. Inside was an envelope from Tel Aviv University, noting a recent archeological discovery from the cliffs surrounding the Dead Sea. After opening, they found a burned and tattered scroll tied in raffia. Chips of charred paper fell as they unrolled a long-lost final chapter of Revelations, which predicted the coming Apocalypse and named them among the survivors called to gather at my place on Halloween.

Sacrilegious? On any day but Halloween. Guests came costumed in their vision of how the world would end. I wore the shell of a computer monitor and said I was a Y2K bug. Guests came as plagues, pestilences and militia members. Among the best costumes were Fire and Brimstone. In another team effort, a husband and wife who were actually due to give birth to a boy on Dec. 25 came as the Biblical Mary and Joseph. Their last name -- no joke -- is Lord.

Rented costumes are quick and easy, but the get-ups that get the most attention are the homemade outfits that show ingenuity in interpreting the theme. Don't be disappointed, however, when some guests ignore the concept suggestion or don't dress up at all. I like to have a few extra goofy hats, shirts or masks to offer to people who may be too shy to dress up on their own.

Party politics

Once your home is filled with people, many of whom you don't even know, the party will take on a life of its own. A little planning can keep things from getting out of control.

If you have a stackable CD player, fill it with discs that are upbeat and diverse -- music that will dictate your party's atmosphere. Single disc players cause those awkward lulls when the music's over, force the host to keep running back to the stereo and provide unwanted openings for guests to request their favorite songs, whether they're right for the party or not. Volume is key. Crank it up a little to pump up the excitement level as the party peaks and turn it down incrementally as the party wanes, or if someone gets out of hand.

Live music breathes life into any social gathering, and I encourage my guests to bring acoustic instruments. I ask, however, that they perform in a room far from the stereo so that their musical styles won't dominate the party. Guests who like a little pickin' and grinnin' will find me in the back room with a guitar after midnight.

People party differently. Gadflies are everywhere at once and seem to talk to everybody. Some stay among their little groups, while loners gravitate to personal spaces on the wall. Vary the volume and lighting of each room to create separate atmospheres that accommodate everyone's comfort level.

As the night heats up, my foyer and dining room become a loud and swarming Ground Zero. Couches and chairs in the living room provide one level of sit-down intimacy and the kitchen offers another. The room where the coats are hung is a quieter place to talk. In another room, illuminated only with red lights and candles in red globes, another CD player spins quieter, instrumental jazz. Loners and potential lovers gravitate to its dark recesses and seem to welcome the arrival of the guitar pickers as the night unfolds.

Keep at least one room off limits. You'll need a private place to stash purses and expensive coats when asked.

Ventilation is vital. The amount of smoke and stale air will parallel your party's ebb and flow. Consider the outside air temperature and plan which windows to open at different stages of the evening and where to place fans to keep the bad air going out and cold air from coming in.

Some Halloween party hosts stop the action for costume contests. That's too much control for my tastes, plus it's hard to get things going again once the natural tempo of the party has been interrupted.

Take a lot of pictures of your weirdly dressed friends for a photo album. They'll get a kick out of seeing how silly they looked when they return for next year's party. An unannounced video show of the previous year's costumes is guaranteed to generate lots of laughs.

The only party that has ever had enough ice was held in the captain's lounge of the Titanic. In a picnic cooler, pour two 8-pound bags of chipped ice over bottles of beer and soda. Keep two additional coolers filled with bags of ice and open them only when needed. If you're serving beer on tap, lay the keg in a tub, surround it with ice, cover it with a sleeping bag and wrap it tightly in a plastic tarp with the plastic spout and pump sticking out the top.

Tie your corkscrew to the bar with a long string to keep it from getting lost and place lined trash receptacles where they'll be needed. Don't skimp on the ashtrays or you'll find smelly butts everywhere. Plastic plates are sturdier than paper ones. Overstock with plates and plastic silverware and offer a choice of plastic cup sizes, also overstocked. Strategically place kitchen towels and stacks of decorative paper napkins so that guests can clean up their own messes.

Drink it or eat it

In seven years of Halloween parties, I've had only one negative incident involving alcohol. Drunk driving laws, sobriety checkpoints and a change in America's tolerance of substance-induced recklessness have changed the way people party.

Section 493 of the Pennsylvania Liquor Code holds that hosts who serve alcohol to a guest who "has shown visible signs of intoxication" can be found civilly and criminally responsible if the inebriated guest causes a death or injury in a motor vehicle after leaving the party. More important than the law, however, is an overriding moral consideration that should prompt every party host to curb the excessive alcohol consumption of guests.

Be sure to offer plenty of non-alcoholic beverages in addition to beer and bar stocks. I avoid providing liquor that's commonly consumed in shots. In the bathroom and exit areas I hang signs reminding drivers to check their alcohol intake and encouraging passengers to take the keys of anyone who appears to have had too much. The myth about giving coffee to someone who's intoxicated is a fallacy -- all you'll get is a drunk who won't fall asleep. I encourage guests to spend the night or stick around until they, or their drivers, can make it home safely. Post the number of a taxi service by the phone.

Before your guests pour that first glass of wine, introduce them to the kitchen. The presence of substantive food in the stomach -- particularly carbohydrates, such as breads and pasta -- slows the absorption of alcohol into the system. An a la carte feast at a late-evening party can help guests keep from over-intoxicating and makes the soiree look, smell and taste like an event to be remembered.

I always place a few bowls of pretzels, chips, dips, cheeses and vegetables throughout the rooms, but the real meal is in the kitchen. There, guests find a stuffed turkey; pots of hot dogs, bratwurst and sauerkraut; hot and sweet sausages; chicken wings; hot vegetable side dishes; rolls and buns; cold salads and vegan entrees. Courteous guests who ask what they can bring generally fill the dessert menu and supplemental snack trays.

Creating complicated theme invitations and costumes is a cinch compared to calculating party food provisions. I tend to err on the side of leftovers. If I hit my mark of 75 guests, the party can consume a 14-pound turkey (or two smaller ones), two dozen sausages and buns, five dozen chicken wings, a 28-ounce bag of frozen vegetables, several fresh peppers, a large container of mushrooms and six baked yams. Snack trays and bowls are filled with a bag of peeled baby carrots, a bag of celery, a half-pound of cream cheese, a pound of sliced cheeses, a box of table crackers, two bags each of potato and tortilla chips and a bag of pretzels.

In addition to the hard stuff, they drink five liters of assorted sodas (diet and regular), two six-packs of ginger ale, 80 ounces of orange and tomato juices and several bottles of tonic water and club soda.

Best laid plans

Plan everything. Think things through. Get downright anal and list things in columns on paper. Then, when the inevitable crisis occurs while your home is filled with people, you can say, "I didn't think of that."

Apparently miffed that it wasn't invited, my hot water tank once exploded a half an hour before the first guest arrived. As another party peaked, my bathroom doorknob fell off. Antsy about performing in front of an audience, my stereo cut out intermittently at several parties.

I've run out of beer before midnight. I've run out of film after two photos. I've run out of my own party in a stupid costume desperately driving around in search of ice.

You can't think of everything -- don't even try. But a smart party host can foresee the foreseeable and be ready when bad things happen. Annual problems are likely to surface, so keep a post-party inventory of spent supplies and surprises to make the next year's gathering go smoother.

Throwing a party is a big responsibility. If you drink, nurse it until the crowd thins out. You're responsible for every action of every guest, including those you don't know. When your guests have problems -- and some of them will -- they're your problems. As host it's your job to solve them, or at least keep them from spoiling the party.

Keep an eye on what's happening. Ask a friend to show up an hour early to help with last-minute details and ask one guest to call before leaving home to see if you need anything. Hide a bucket and a mop that you can get to quickly and discreetly. Buy a few extra light bulbs, but remember where you put them.

If the food runs out before the beer, know a place that will deliver a couple of pizzas. If the beer runs out, know what time the nearest late-night distributor closes. Have $20 and some change in your pocket -- you'll know what it's for when you reach for it.

Throwing an annual Halloween theme party sounds like a lot of work and it is. But it's better than being bored on the only weekend of the year when you can get away with bloody murder, even if it's only fake vampire blood.