Thursday, October 22, 2009

(Not) Having a Party!

About a month ago, I bought the October issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. I love Martha Stewart's mags, especially the holiday issues! Her Halloween stuff looked so spooky and fun, and I decided that I wanted to host a Halloween party.
For a number of reasons, I changed my mind and decided to have a pre-Halloween pumpkin carving party instead (I'm pretty sure one of these was featured in the magazine too). I thought that this would be a less expensive and easier-to-control option than a nighttime Halloween bash. And, if I got lucky, we would have decent weather, carve pumpkins in the backyard (oops, garden, sorry!) and not have a huge mess to clean up inside. Plus, I thought it might be fun to invite our "inner-child"s out to play & carve pumpkins!

I had such a good time browsing for decorating ideas, like the cute painted pumpkins here.
I was trying to narrow down my list of do-it-yourself projects, choosing between Halloween votives, cute digi-created treat bag toppers (about halfway down the page), and something like these Spooky/Harvest blocks (scroll down a little to see them) to display across the mantle.
And of course, a big chunk of my time was dedicated to food, my favorite part of a party. So I set off browsing for pumpkin recipes (Pumpkin Seed Brittle, Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, precious little Pumpkin Pie Bites) and Halloween-themed eats, like Candy Corn Pizza, Spider Web Dip, Witches Wands & Monster Munch. This Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip was definitely going on my menu (and it was definitely going to be served in a hollowed out little pumpkin!) I thought that having Rice Krispie Treats with a special fall twist might get the guests reminiscing about carving pumpkins as kids.

I was thinking of what kinds of prizes I'd award for pumpkins... creepiest pumpkin, funniest pumpkin, most traditional, most unique. I wonder if any of my guests would've come up with something like this:

I saw this on Party Perfect this morning and just loved it! I followed the linky-trail as far as it would take me and couldn't find any info about who made this or how!

Anyway, did you notice that that was all in past tense? My pumpkin party was canceled before it even got off the ground for a few different reasons. 1. Halloween is a Saturday, which means that if I wanted to have my pumpkin party before Halloween, I would've had to do it on the 24th or 25th. 2. I wanted to have the party as a "meet & greet" kind of thing for David, who was supposed to be coming for a visit on the 24th. Therefore, the party would have to be on the 25th...and I wasn't too sure about how he'll do with jetlag or whatever. 3. I got a phone call from David saying that there was a big chance that he might not make it on the plane that arrives the 24th and he might get here the 31st instead. And 4. I know a lot of really lame people who thought that a pumpkin-carving party would not be fun! What!?!? And, although there were one or two people who really did think it would be so much fun ("Oh my gosh! I haven't carved a pumpkin in years!")...kind of the reaction I'd been hoping for... reasons 2 and 3 (mostly 3) kind of made my decision for me.
But it was still fun to plan! And I don't have to clean up before or after (gee, that is a common theme among my projects)!

5 comments:

Dame Nuisance said...

Maybe you can have the party next year - you've already done all the research!

Stopping by from SITS to say hello!

Anonymous said...

Awww...
Maybe you can just have a fall party? Parties are so fun!

Cynthia said...

I love all the pumpkin ideas. Even if there was not a party, you turned it into a terrific post.

Dogeared said...

I agree, it was an awesome post. And you know, as a Brit, I'd have been fully on board (even if only looking at the photos and reading about it). We don't do Halloween as much as the US does, and so we usually don't have much in the way of pumpkins - oddly enough, that means I've never eaten or carved one.

And woah, whoopie pies just sound hilarious.

You ever thought of changing teaching for party planning or wedding planning? I mean seriously, you've the eye for details!

Jenn Erickson said...

Sorry to hear that the party fizzled, but hey ~ you're way ahead for next year! I absolutely love that "Pumpkin Burger" ~ hilarious and creative! Happy SITS Saturday Sharefest!

Jenn @ rookno17.blogspot.com

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