Our annual Halloween party has become one of our most cherished Marks family traditions. It started as a really over the top seated Halloween dinner party, complete with tombstone place settings that read, “Here Lies Catherine” and such. The biggest complaint that year was the cobwebs on the tablecloth were getting into people’s food. Ha! It quickly evolved into an all afternoon & evening serve-yourself chili and cornbread bar, and the day’s activities centered around football watching and pumpkin carving. This was one of those pre-baby parties. Then baby arrived, and we emphasized more costumes and let the food be a little simpler.
This year, it’s clear that the food presentation has continued to get more and more low key as there are more and more little ones on our guest list, and we love it! We are generally in the toddler and under phase, but we are looking forward to when we have more and more elementary school-aged kids to carve pumpkins!
Victoria and I found my old madrigal feast queen costume when we were at my parents’ house in September and decided to be renaissance royals for Halloween with our crazy court jester!
I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, complete with the flower crown I got from Haley’s bachelorette party. 🙂
The menu is the primary element that remains constant: chili, lots of toppings, cornbread, some appetizers, and usually, meringue ghosts in the graveyard, though I didn’t get around to them this year. Drink offerings are pumpkin beer and hot apple cider on the stove with optional bourbon.
The Porters are veterans of at least three of our Halloween parties, and they were the perfect ducks this year!
Little lion Jacob.
Will was a CHAMP carving for Olivia.
The pumpkin carving took place on the front porch since it was a little wet and rainy for the table on the deck, but as we get more kids carving I imagine we’ll head to the big table out back. Next year I’m thinking we’ll implement a schedule so that everyone gets their pumpkins carved before they’re hungry for dinner.
True life: my queen costume got hot and itchy, so I changed Victoria into her bee costume and put on a Mizzou t-shirt and yoga pants. Will had to work, and Mizzou had a heartbreaking loss on the final play after the clock had run out. BUT it was truly my favorite year yet. Having old friends attend every year and watching our sweet littles playing together (and the chaos that ensues) is my favorite part. We are creating childhood friendships and memories for our baby girl, and there’s nothing sweeter than that!
I didn’t blog during the first two, but here are our Halloween parties from 2016 and 2017.
Happy Halloween, friends!
