Christian Halloween Party

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to the products for your convenience but do not receive anything if you buy from them.

 Now I have not been shy about my feelings about Halloween. I really hate the gore and how far people take it. Hazel is easily frightened and I can no longer take her into some stores because of the Halloween products. I have tried and regret it due to the bad dreams she has. When I was offered to do a post using Halloween products from Oriental Trading, I hesitated, but then remembered all their great Sunday School supplies. Hazel and I planned a Christian Halloween Party. Many of the parents at her school do not celebrate the holiday or take their kids to a church event on Halloween. Needless to say many feel like I do about the holiday. We started by sending out an Evite. We asked the guests to dress as their favorite Biblical character. Hazel wanted to be Queen Esther. I let her pick out the color of the Nativity Child Costume she wanted and she picked the Pink Nativity Child Costume. We made a handknit belt to wear with it and added beads to the ends. (Hazel ended up being the only one to wear a costume, but she did not care. She was really excited to be Queen Esther.)

Then we picked out some crafts. The kids started with coloring a Color Your Own "Treat Others" Faith Crown. Hazel had colored hers before the party and is the only one that actually got completed. Many of the kids wore them without any coloring.

After everyone arrived and got a crown we worked on the other crafts. We started with the Pumpkin Prayer Ornaments with Card Craft Kits. These were very easy for the kids (aged 6-10) and not too messy since they were adhesive backed pieces of foam. Hazel hung one of them on her all season tree and gave one to a couple of her teachers.

Next we made the Handpicked By God Magnets. These also had adhesive backed foam pieces and the kids really liked putting the face on the pumpkins. Several of them commented on the funny nose. The trickiest part was leaving enough room for the pumpkin stem.

Our final craft was the Candy Corn Bracelet with Card Craft Kit. The kids beaded their bracelets though a couple decided to finish at home. They enjoyed it.

These bracelets inspired one of our decorations. I bought the candy corn garland kit at the Paper Source and Hazel and I put it together. Then we embellished it with some of the corns saying: "God, Jesus, Holy Spirit" or "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" or 3 in 1. We left half of them plain and alternated them.

I also made a paper pompom with instructions from Paper Pom-Poms and Other Party Decorations by Juliet Carr. (More on this book soon!!) We decorated it with a face and added a printable tag.

We also made a spider jar decoration. We used an orange jar left over from our tiger jars to collect money for wildlife. I used a black paint marker and drew spider webs on it. Then we hot glued glow-in-the-dark flies and stretchy spiders on to it. The stretchy spiders did not stick well or for very long, but they made it through the party. I made a flag to stick in it with our spider saying.

We also used Jumbo Little Boolievers Cutouts to decorate our space. Hazel hung many of them around the two rooms. We decided to have the party in our in-law apartment since one of the moms coming is in a wheelchair and this is really the only space she can get into the house. 

Hung on Refrigerator in Party Area

After the crafts Hazel wanted to play games. She invented a scavenger hunt. She actually made some things for it, but we did not include them. I printed out eight pictures with our various sayings on them. You can get these and the printables for the pumpkin and spider web jar at this link.

After the scavenger hunt, we had the kids sit around the Inflatable Campfire. We talked about how there use to be huge bonfires to scare away the evil spirits the night before All Souls Day. The fire attracted the bugs which attracted the bats and owls. It is said this is probably why bats and owls are used in Halloween decorations. Then we read The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs. (We shared about this book a few years ago.)

Next we had a snack since the kids were hungry. For food we served (though did not label) fruit from the tree of knowledge, hot dogs wrapped in God's love, pumpkin patch parable bread and apple cider. Hazel and I decorated the cups. We bought orange paper cups and foam Christian stickers at Walmart (I had a hard time finding orange cups but finally found them at Walmart). We used the sticker to make religious jack-'o-lantern faces on the cups.

We also decorated the goody bags in a similar way. We used the same stickers on cutout pumpkins and then glued the pumpkins to extra large brown paper lunch bags. The goody bags had several fun things in them and gave the kids a place to put their crafts. We labeled the bags with names so there would be no confusion.

Inside the goody bags were Religious Pumpkin Flashlight Key Chains (perfect for trick-or-treating), Christian Pumpkin Backpack Clip Key Chains, Christian Pumpkin Stickers, a small pumpkin filled with candy corn (I bought them at Rite Aid) and a Fall Christian printable , Christian Pumpkin Glow-In-The-Dark Mini Buttons, and since Hazel wanted to be Queen Esther we got Queen Esther Sticker Scenes and gave everyone one.

Next we did a fan dance. Everyone got a Little "Boo"liever Fan and danced to some Christian kids music. The fans were a big hit though the kids were a bit rough on them as they danced. The one problem with using our in-law apartment is the lack of space. This activity was planned when we thought we would have it outside or in the family room where there would be more space.

Then we tried the idea I found on Pen & Paper Flowers and the kids tried to walk with a small pumpkin gourd on their heads. A couple were very good, but the rest took some practice to keep it up there for any amount of time. This picture shows after a few tries for Hazel (and thus the big smile).

Our final activity was taken from one of the features of this week's Sharing Saturday. Hands On As We Grow shared A Sticky Spider Web Activity for Kids. We used this activity with the explanation that the paper sticking to the web was like us sticking with Jesus or following Jesus. I had created the web on the garage door so the kids had to put their shoes and coats back on. It was cold here on Saturday for the party.

Overall, everyone had a great time. The parents were happy to see Jesus and God brought into the Halloween celebrations and this let the kids have a bit of Halloween. Thank you to Oriental Trading for providing all the fun things for our Christian Halloween Party!! We really enjoyed it and the kids loved all the favors and crafts! For even more Christian Halloween ideas and products check out my Pinterest Board.