all hallow's eve

Our American friends did not want to miss out on one of their big holiday traditions, so they hosted a Halloween Party in Switzerland. Why not start celebrating it too - it is great fun and a party the whole family can attend!

No Halloween party is complete without having everyone getting dressed up. Simple costumes can be made at home, like Christina plaited her hair and inserted wire into it to look like Pippi Longstocking (she wore bright stockings too) and her husband, Eric wore a straw hat attached a leaf and was a "leaf blower"! Award prizes for best dressed and most creative.

Make your own decorations: arrange black and orange candles in groupings, string cobwebs over bookshelves and cut out ghosts and owls from white and black paper.

Halloween paper plates, cups and napkins were purchased to add to the decoration and to cater for the many guests.

Christina's talent lies in the kitchen, so the food was definitely the highlight: for starters she made a corn salsa with tortilla chips and a cheese ball covered in poppy seeds with crackers around to look like a witch's hat. For the main course, she presented chicken soup served in real pumpkin bowls with pumpkin bread baked from scratch. For dessert a chocolate cake in the shape of a pumpkin iced in orange!

Ask each guest to bring along a pumpkin, and organise a pumpkin-carving contest. Supply some of the tools that one needs to do the carving - see our article on how to carve a pumpkin for more information. The pumpkins can then be lit up for more decoration during the party, and guests can take them home to decorate their windowsills for Halloween, which in our case was technically the next night.

As guests are about to depart, dish out some Halloween candy.