Hitherto we have had at most 6 children and had it at home but by the time the guest list had grown to 25, it was obvious home was not going to cut it this year. But having paid for 18 children to do 10 pin bowling in April, my bank account doesn't quite match my enthusiasm for parties. The unseasonably warm October weather gave me an idea though. We would do it in the forest and put up our humungous tent in case it rained.
(humungous tent, although this was at HESFES, not at the party)
I was nervous about the tent because it was a pain to put up at HESFES, but in the event, it took 15 minutes, after which DH pootled off to collect girls from trampolining while I unpacked the bags and hid chocolate eyeballs in the surrounding bit of forest. Afzaul got back with Hannah, 2 of her friends and my friend L about 1.45 and not long after the guests began to arrive. Within about 30 mins we had 14 children so we started the games.
As Hannah's friends are an eclectic mix from a variety of activities, we always start a party with a getting to know you game. In line with the Halloween theme, we played "spider's web" which involved holding a bit of wool while throwing the rest of the ball to someone else. The person holding the ball had to say their name and how they know Hannah. We ended up with a lovely looking web, the ice was well and truly broken as the minute the last person had said their name the whole crowd of them took off into the woods, shrieking and giggling and the resultant tangle provided Tim and Richard, two of the dads who stayed, with hours of entertainment as they determinedly untangled it (they cheated in the end and scissors came into it!).
Once we'd got to know each other, the hunt for eyeballs was on. The children sorted themselves into teams and I set them loose to hunt for the chocolate eyeballs. Great fun was had by all as the children disappeared in giggling huddles into the woods while the parents got to know each other and most importantly I got time to draw breath! After about 20 minutes they came straggling back with 40-odd eyeballs between them and the winning team got a prize (more chocolate...sorry!). After a brief break to eat some eyeballs, we set off in search of a flat open space to do mummy races. Two children in each team volunteered to be mummies and the other 3 were wrappers. Armed with a roll of toilet paper they set about preparing their first mummy who had to run to a log about 25m away, back again, have their bandages removed before wrapping mummy number 2 and the seond person running there and back. Team Irish Dancing won..although I did help them with the wrapping as on the whole they were younger than the other teams.
After that came Zombie Mats...which in all Hannah's explanations made NO sense to me whatever, but in the event involved one person being the zombie who had to walk slowly, zombie-style, round a circle while the other children moved from one mat to another. When the zombie managed to get onto a mat, the child who happened to be standing on the centre mat became the zombie. They played quite a few rounds of this, then followed that up with blindfolded doughnut eating.
I had other games in mind, but the apple bobbing became impossible because we didnt have enough water and, hyped up on chocolate and the excitement of being out in the wood as darkness crept up on us, no one wanted to sit down to play "witches cauldron"...which in any case was a bit of a backup in the event of having to take shelter in the tent. The rest of the party seemed to consist of running around shrieking (children) and laughing at Tim and Richard determinedly untangling the spider's web wool (adults).
Tent in the woods party a fabulous idea....will definitely do that one again!
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