(Worm cake, source: Crafty Kids, Summer 2000, Vol. 2. No. 3 issue)

1. Candles only

Switch off all the lights and only allow candle lighting. To enhance the creepy feel, carves some Halloween pumpkins and put tea candles inside. Try to give each pumpkin a different ghastly face.

2. Halloween meals

Have a pumpkin meal. Make good use of the pulp that derived from carving Halloween pumpkins. Pumpkin recipes can be soup, pie and pudding, and cooking is easy. For desserts, have worm cakes (bake cake in a soup can as the soil, add whipped topping, pudding, crushed cookies as the dirt and finally the gummy worms).

3. Dress up

Since the celebration is at home, feel free to have a bold and dreadful dress up. The simplest one is to cover oneself in a white sheet and pretend to be a ghost. However, eating and drinking will be inconvenient and cutting holes in white sheets is a squander. Here are a few more suggestions.

To dress differently:
a. For men, apply makeup and be the Joker in Batman movie.
b. For women, add a witch nose, a black pointed hat and dress. Apply makeup to give yourself a lot of winkles all over the face to enhance the degree of evilness.
c. For children, dress them up as little devils, with a devil fork.

To dress more or less the same style:
a. Wear a black capote, a white ghastly mask and be the Death.
b. Be vampires. Feel free to smash your mouth with tomato paste.
c. Be a corpse that just had your prison break from the coffin for this party. Paint stitches all over the faces and wrap some bandages loosely around the body.

Don’t forget to take some photos. Pretend to be ghastly in front of the camera as if the house has been raped.

4. Watch a movie

Pick a movie that is horrible enough to make everyone scream. Some suggestions are The Omen, Halloween series, Saw series, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.

If kids are in the party and you don’t want to frighten them, The Nightmare before Christmas, Casper and The Addams Family will be more appropriate.

5. Share ghost stories

Let everyone tell a ghost story. If anyone has difficulty coming up with a story, compose one together. Each person contributes a line until the story ends.

The aforementioned celebrations are affordable and easy to prepare comparatively. No matter who the participants are and the number involved, let’s all do something special and stamp the Halloween fun in your memory. Enjoy your creepy night.

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Other festival related articles you may be interested in reading:

Annual Dig of a Myth

13 Common Customs for Chinese New Year
 

The Caterpillar

Form a chain of pumpkins with carved spots, stripes, or other simple designs and a carved caterpillar “face” at the head. A string of pumpkin or low-heat lights will be perfect for lighting up a curved and twisting caterpillar on your porch or stoop.

Totem Pole

Stack your carved pumpkin faces into a totem pole lit with jar candles, touch lights, or a string of pumpkin lights inserted through holes in the back. Each face or front design can be unique — for a creative touch, consider the animal designs favored in ancient totem poles or try out your own silly or scary designs — how about the scariest characters from classic horror films?

Chain of Heads

A variety of different faces and ghoulish expressions are perfect for creating a long row of lanterns to line your porch, deck, or steps. Whether you carve cartoon characters, shrunken heads, or simple the standard Jack O’ Lantern faces, a row of grinning pumpkins on your porch is sure to produce a few compliments. For an extra unique touch: carve large selections from White Lumos pumpkins with “skull” faces for a Halloween pirate scene.

The variety of faces, details, and designs you can create are limited only to your imagination. Enjoy showing off your pumpkin harvest in a stellar Jack O’ Lantern extravaganza this Halloween.

Cool Colors

Medium-sized pumpkins, like the ghostly blue-grey Jarrahdale, are an exotic choice for ambitious carvers or pumpkin enthusiasts, while mini-ghostly favorites Baby Boos are miniature pale white pumpkins popular for handpainting at Halloween.

For a stripey mini pumpkin perfect for painting, a Turk’s Cap pumpkin features a turban-like top striped red and white. Experienced or adventurous carvers can cut and lift the “cap”, scrape clean inside, then carve and add a light for a tiny lantern.

Weird Choices

For a small size, try the strange and warty heirloom variety known as the Turner Family pumpkin, perfect for “deformed” jack o’ lantern faces. The unusual Fortna pumpkin is pear-shaped and white — perfect for carving or painting “ghosts”.

American Tonda features the traditional orange skin but with vertical green stripes along the pumpkin’s “ribbing”.

Giant Size

For a traditional jack o’ lantern giant, Big Max grows huge pumpkins which can exceed one hundred pounds. The bright orange flesh resembles the standard Halloween pumpkin choice.

For unusual giants, try the rare heirloom choice known as the Mammoth Chile. With potential weight of one hundred pounds, the pumpkins featuring a pinky-orange skin with a mottled pattern.

An unusual jack o’ lantern can create quite a display in your window or on your porch this fall. Show off your green thumb (and your unique taste) with a few exotic varieties in your garden.