New Halloween Party Finds to Grab Before 31 October
Halloween has a way of sneaking up on people. One week the shelves are still full of mooncake boxes, and the next it is the last Saturday of October and somebody has volunteered you to host twelve children in costume.
If that somebody is you, the trick is picking a few things that do several jobs at once. We have just taken in two new Halloween party supplies that land squarely in that category, working as decoration, activity and goodie bag filler depending on which part of the afternoon you are trying to survive.
Start with the party glasses
Our new Halloween Party Glasses come in assorted spooky designs, twelve to a bag. They are the fastest costume fix we know of, which is the whole point. There is always one child who turns up in a school T-shirt because the costume plan fell apart that morning, and handing them a pair of these sorts it out in about four seconds.
No sizing to worry about either, which makes them easier than almost anything else you could hand out. They photograph well too, so if you are the parent taking the group shot at the end, this is the item that makes everyone look like they committed to the theme.
The bouncy balls pull double duty
The other arrival is our Halloween Rubber High Bounce Ball, assorted Halloween designs, twelve to a box. On the surface these are a simple pocket toy. What they actually buy you is twenty minutes of structured chaos, which at a children's party is close to priceless.
Set a bucket at the end of a corridor and let everyone take three shots at bouncing one in. Winner picks first from the treat table. The game needs no setup, no supervision beyond pointing at the bucket, and it works equally well for five-year-olds and the ten-year-olds who have decided they are too old for party games.
They also double as a stress ball, which means they go home with the children and keep being used instead of ending up in the bin by Sunday. A blind box makes a good prize for much the same reason, and how blind boxes can elevate a party comes down to that same small moment of not knowing what is inside.
Rounding out the table
Beyond the two new arrivals, a Halloween table comes together from a short list of things you can pick up in one trip:
Orange and black paper plates and cups, so nothing needs washing at the end.
Treat bags, ideally the kind that stand up on their own.
Paper garlands and hanging decorations, which cover more wall for less money than anything else.
A disposable tablecloth, the single most underrated purchase at any children's party.
Napkins in a colour that hides chocolate.
Decorating a space you are not allowed to damage
Most Halloween parties in Singapore happen somewhere you cannot put a nail in the wall. A condo function room, a void deck, somebody's living room where the paint is newer than the children. The way around it is to decorate downwards and across instead of onto surfaces.
Hang garlands between two chairs or along the edge of a table, stand decorations up rather than sticking them on, and use the tablecloth as your main block of colour. A dim room helps enormously here, because a few cheap decorations in low light read as atmosphere, while the same decorations under full fluorescent lighting read as a few cheap decorations.
Food that does not need a kitchen
Nobody expects a Halloween spread to be cooked from scratch. Finger food on a tray, a few bowls of sweets, and something orange for the photographs will carry the whole thing. The decoration does the heavy lifting here, so put your effort into the table and let the food be easy.
One thing that helps more than it should: portion things into individual cups or small containers before guests arrive. It stops the queue at the table, it keeps sticky hands out of shared bowls, and when the party ends you are throwing away empties instead of washing serving dishes.
Pre-portioning also solves the allergy conversation quietly. Keep one or two cups aside with something plain in them, hand them to the parent who mentioned it at drop-off, and nobody has to make a thing of it in front of the other children.
Ordering with days to spare
Both new items come in packs of twelve, which maps neatly onto a class party or a decent-sized group. Buy for the number of children plus two, because somebody always brings a sibling. Our Halloween stock does move quickly through the last fortnight of October, so if you have a date in mind, it is better to buy a week early and sit on a spare pack than to go hunting on the 30th.
Come and have a look
A good Halloween party is mostly a few well-chosen items and a willingness to let children make a mess for two hours. Pick things that survive the walk home, keep the food simple, and let the costumes and the decorations carry the rest.
If you are putting something together this month, come and see us at SKP. As Singapore's largest supplier of disposable food packaging and a one-stop provider of packaging and party needs, we can help you get everything on your list in one go, with time left over to work out your own costume.