It’s Autumn again and the leaves are turning. There’s pumpkins to carve and decorations to put up. It’s time to get ready for trick-or-treaters. Why not have some fun as well. Here are some low cost ideas for entertaining at Halloween.

Tell a Story

Everyone loves a good ghost story even if they don’t believe in ghosts. This simple entertainment has been used for centuries. All it takes is a little imagination and a tad bit of research. The best stories are inspired by reported experiences. There are hundreds of books with information about hauntings as well as stories on the internet.

If you don’t feel like a ghost story, why not recount the glories of Halloween past. Like the time you spent two ½ hours trick-or-treating and gathered enough candy to last until Thanksgiving. Or maybe you had an experience similar to mine; one Halloween, we had just finished trick-or-treating when someone threw a rock at a window in the front room, shattering one of the panes. My grandmother was with us that night and I think she made matters worse by going into a panic. We were forced to hide in the hall where there weren’t any windows. Gee, why couldn’t they just egg our house?

Fortune telling

What would Halloween be without a few fortune telling games. A tarot deck can be expensive, so I suggest using a regular deck of cards, which are base on the minor arcana. You can use a standard book on the tarot to interpret the cards or you can make up your own, which might be more fun. Another low-cost game is tea leaf reading. All you need is tea, hot water and a few cups. There is information on the standard interpretation of the leaves, but there is an easier way. Basically tea leaf reading is finding images and making a prediction about them. A rectangle is a coffin, a circle could be the sun or a ring, a house could mean someone’s moving, etc. Pay attention to where the image is in the cup. Bottom of the bowl is negative, and the top is positive. You can also make yourself a set of rune stones.  Go to http://www.uponreflection.co.uk/runes/viking_runes_futhark.htm and check out the runes.  Find some flat pebbles and use a marker to write the runes on the stones.  The meaning of the runes is at the website.

Visit some place creepy

You don’t need to do this at night to get the full effect or spend money. There is an old church with an attached graveyard a few miles from where I live. I went there one afternoon in February. A plum tree was just starting to bloom but everything else was bare. Although the area was pretty and quaint, there was still something night of the living deadish about it. It might have been the lighting. It was close to 4 pm and the sky was cloudy. It also might have been the tombstones.

One word of caution; please don’t go anywhere that isn’t safe and please stay off private property. There are plenty of creepy places to visit without making a nuisance of yourself. You may even have a few creepy places on hand; ie. the basement, attic, any closet. You may want to use your own creepy hang out for a party. It'll make those ghost stories a little more believable.

Food for fun.

Autumn treats make any party fun, isn’t that why your guest agreed to come in the first place? They don’t need to be expensive or extravagant. The tea leaf reading can be done with regular black tea. If you have a local discount grocery store, you might be able to find an exotic loose leaf tea at a bargain price. While you’re there, check out the snack isle. These stores carry items not found at your regular grocery store. You can also fine spices and condiments at a cheaper rate. Just make sure you check out the expiration date.

Why not use your bargains to make deviled eggs, a party favorite. If you have some of those ketchup packages, you can use them to decorate the eggs. There are also creative recipes made with freezer biscuits. Have a little fun with your food too. Why not create a fortunetelling game with jelly beans. Assign each color a different meaning; i.e. green for money, red for love, white for wedding, etc.