A Halloween party for children who do not like being scared: a mad science table with test tube drinks, marshmallow web cookies, green snot jelly and chocolate roaches, a monster who gets sick when you feed him a tablet, balloon bats on the ceiling, and a green snot pool to balance across.
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My daughter is one of those children who loves the idea of Halloween and cannot handle the reality of it. One rubber hand in a shop window and we are talking about it at bedtime for a week.
So I stopped trying to make her braver and changed the party instead. No blood, no body parts, no jump scares. Just the other thing that makes children scream, which is anything disgusting.
Worms, slime, snot, burps, a monster who throws up when you give him medicine. It turns out that yucky is the friendliest doorway into Halloween there is, because a child who is laughing is never frightened.
We called it the Mad Lab, everyone came in whenever they wanted, and she stayed until the very end. Here is the whole thing, table, decorations and games.
Everything on this table is ordinary supermarket food wearing a costume, which is the whole trick. Nothing here takes skill, only a little bit of nerve about what it looks like.
Test tube potions: clear plastic test tubes filled with pomegranate concentrate topped up with cold water. It is a good drink and it looks exactly like something you should not swallow. Stand them in a rack or crowd them into a tall glass.
Green snot jelly cups: make green jelly the day before in small clear cups. Leave them slightly under set and they wobble in the most satisfying way.
Marshmallow web cookies: put two marshmallows on a plate, microwave for 10 to 15 seconds until puffed, then pull them apart with two forks while hot and drape the threads over plain round cookies. The webs set as they cool. Let the children do the pulling, it is half the fun.
Put one small sign in front of each dish with the disgusting name written on it. The names are what make children shriek, not the food.
Melt chocolate chips in short bursts in the microwave, spoon it into a silicone bug mould, tap the tray on the counter to knock out the air bubbles, and chill for 20 minutes. They pop straight out with sharp little legs and they look horribly real.
Tip them onto a white plate with a pile of gummy worms so the two disgusting things sit together. This is always the first plate to empty.
If you have no time to melt anything, a bag of gummy worms and plastic bugs scattered down the middle of the table does most of the same work.
Press a bat shaped cutter into the top bun before baking or toasting, and suddenly a plain burger is the main event. Cheese slices cut with the same cutter work for children who will not eat meat, and so does a bat shaped sandwich.
Serve them on a wooden board with little bowls of ketchup. Cut the buns while the children are busy with something else, because the cutter is sharp.
Blow up two black balloons, a small one for the head and a bigger one for the body, and tape them together. Cut a pair of scalloped wings from a black bin bag, one long piece, and tape the middle of it behind the balloons.
Tape the wing tips into a corner of the ceiling so the bat hangs in the angle where the walls meet. Two of these in opposite corners change the whole room.
Stick on two white paper circles for eyes and two little triangles for teeth. Keep the face friendly, this bat is meant to be funny.
Draw a big silly monster face on a large sheet of cardboard with a thick marker, with a wide open mouth. Fill a clear balloon with a little water, not too much, so it hangs long and heavy like a drip, and tape it to the bottom of the mouth.
Hang the cardboard where a splash does not matter, over a tiled floor or outside, and put a tub underneath. Children will poke it all afternoon.
Draw the face together the day before. That hour at the kitchen table is honestly as good as the party.
Mix one cup of baking soda with 2 heaped tablespoons of cornstarch. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of water, a little at a time, until the mixture holds together when you squeeze it, like damp sand.
Press it very firmly into a round cavity silicone mould, pushing down hard with your thumbs so each tablet is dense. Leave them to dry for at least a full day, longer if your kitchen is humid.
Tip them out gently and keep them in a bowl. Make more than you think you need, because every child will want at least three turns.
This is the centre of the party and the thing everybody films. Push a long wooden skewer into a block of styrofoam so it stands up, and press a styrofoam ball onto the top. Pull a silly green monster mask over the ball.
Cut the mouth of the mask open and fit a clear plastic cup inside, taped to the edge of the mouth from behind, tilted slightly forward so anything inside it pours out. Put the whole thing at the edge of a table with a bucket on the floor right underneath the mouth.
Fill the cup about halfway with white vinegar and a few drops of green and yellow food colouring. Stand a printed sign next to him: HE'S SICK! GIVE HIM A TABLET!
Now each child drops one fizzy tablet into his mouth, and he foams, gurgles and throws up a long green stream into the bucket. Top up the vinegar between turns, and let the children take it in turns rather than crowding, because everyone wants to be the one holding the tablet.
Do this outside or on a floor you can wipe. Vinegar stings eyes, so an adult pours and the children only drop the tablet in.
Hide small artificial pumpkins around the garden or through the house before the children arrive, in plant pots, on window sills, behind the sofa cushions. Give everyone a basket and send them off.
Hide one or two more than the number of children so nobody comes back empty handed, and tell them the number to find so the hunt has an ending.
The pumpkins go home with them at the end, which means this game is also your favour bag.
Slide a whoopee cushion under a cushion on the sofa before anyone sits down, and then find a reason to ask one child after another to sit there.
It is silly, it costs almost nothing, and it buys you fifteen minutes of children pranking each other while you refill the vinegar.
Set a small paddling pool on the grass and mix cornflour and water in it, roughly two parts cornflour to one part water, until it is thick and gloopy and goes hard when you hit it. Add green food colouring and stir it through.
Lay a plank or a low bench across the middle. The challenge is to walk across without falling into the snot. Small children hold a hand, and everybody falls in eventually, which is the point.
For older children, hand out pool noodles and let two of them duel on the plank. Whoever lands in the snot loses. Have a hose and towels ready, and warn parents in the invitation that clothes will not survive.
Order the afternoon like this: food first while everyone is clean, then the sick monster, then the pumpkin hunt, and the snot pool last so the mess is the ending and everyone goes straight home. Say in the invitation that nothing at this party is scary, because that sentence is the reason some children will be allowed to come at all.
Silicone bug mould for the chocolate roachesShop
Bat shaped cutter for the burger bunsShop
Small artificial pumpkins for the huntShop
Whoopee cushions for the sofaShopThese are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
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