Halloween Throwback

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to think of when I first threw a party and just recently realized it. It was a Halloween party with my boyfriend and our roommate back in 2015! We named it Spooky Halloween Party year one (ha ha ha.. I know, it was corny. I wasn't very pun-ny back then). I remember only inviting around 35 people and ended up having around 70 people. We had the boys, my boyfriend and his friends, take care of the food situation since they wanted to grill, smoke and barbecue some chicken and meat. I couldn't really complain. We had barbecued baby back ribs, smoked pork, grilled steaks, burgers and hot dogs. The boys definitely came in clutch with the food.

On the other side of the party spectrum, I was in charge of decorating the venue, our house. We lived in a duplex house with a backyard in Avondale, Jacksonville, one of the city's hipster places to live in. It was build in the 1950's (or so I feel like it was) and is located in an area with a lot of trees and Spanish moss. Those factors alone made setting the mood right for Halloween a ghoulishly easy task for me, but because I'm extra, I had to add more spooky things around the house. I made black paper bats and stuck them to all of the walls from the first floor to the second. I put eyeballs and Spanish moss in glass jars and vases, "radio-active" glowing hands in coolers, a body bag in the bath tub, balloon and cheesecloth ghosts around the chandelier and the trees all over the house and yard, wrote "you're next" on our bathroom windows with fake blood, and make "poison X" syringe shots. I was also supposed to make angry eyebrows and a mustache for our Finn the Human painting but ran out of paper from getting carried away with cutting bats.

Setting the mood for an occasion would never be complete without lights, so we hung lights on the outside of the front and back yard and shredded more cheesecloth and put it on our fences, doors and outdoor walls to make the house more spooky. I even used my boyfriend as the crime scene outline. It's kind of funny because the night before the party, I got so lazy to DIY the decorations and put it up, but I ended up doing so much DIY-ing that night. Although I'm a little bummed that I wasn't able to take pictures and capture the entirety of the party, I would say it was definitely a success.

Hopefully, the party I throw this year would be as great as the first one. It's fun to put parties yourself because you get to customize it however you want it to be. Setting the right mood is great but also don't forget to hang out with your friends. As my mom always says, "enjoy the fruits of your labor!" we worked hard for nothing if we don't enjoy it ourselves. This year, I'll definitely spend it with my vampires, crypt keepers, ghouls, and frankensteins. Have a frightful evening, friends!