Geek Freak Show

Fan of sci-fi movies? Have your guests dress in their favorite Tolkien Character, maybe even a Star Trek character for your trekkie friends, Dark Angel character if you like Jessica Alba, or as their favorite manga anime.

Transform your usually drab, run of the mill white picket fenced front yard into your final fantasy unleashed. Try decorating it in a scene right out of the Lord of the Rings. You can fairly cheap fog machines to amp the ambience of the occasion. Have two volunteers dress as Orcs to guide your guests through the door. Instead of using candles and dim lighting, try black lights for astonishing results. Draw creepy creatures or even body outlines on the wall with chalk and watch guests take a double look at the effect of black lights on them.

For a simulated lightning effect, use a strobe light. It works well indoors or outdoors. Hang plastic axes, swords and shield on walls to simulate Mordor castle. Instead of scarecrows, hang large plastic black bats from ceilings.

Hold a contest on who can carve the best looking orc-pumpkin. Give out prizes for various criteria. It’s not just for Jack O’ Lantern tonight. Create goblin light around your house by tying glow-in-the-dark sticks to floating balloons. Make sure you anchor the balloons so they won’t float away!

For your table centerpiece, fill a plastic cauldron with hot water then drop some dry ice in it with a glow-in-the-dark stick to create a very eerie aura and instant fog for your table.

Orcs like to eat human body parts. Prepare a big bowl of “human body parts” and have your guests write down their guesses of its contents. The winner has to be the one who guesses the most body parts correctly. For the brain, use a very large peeled squishy tomato. Use two cherry tomatoes or black olives as “eyes”. Catsup mixed with a little warm water would suffice as blood, and a large uncooked liver as of course, the “liver” and cooked cold spaghetti as worms.

Have a bon fire ready and prepare marshmallows and barbecue sticks for an evening of delight. Now would also be a good time to roast all the pumpkin seeds you scooped out of the Orc O’Lanterns. Use those flashlights you conveniently stowed away for emergency use. They would do great as spot lights on room décor, or just hand them out to guests to help them find their way around. Make sure you use long-life rechargeable batteries.

Don’t forget to give out prizes for most original costume, most realistic costume, silliest costume, and the scariest costume! Make sure you have extra prizes on hand in case of tie winners.

Take lots of pictures of your holiday guests; they would love you for it. An even better idea is to hand out disposable cameras to guests and let them take all the pictures they want. Make sure you enclose a picture of them when you send out your thank you notes.