One of the pleasures of halloween is that we can use it as an excuse to throw a Halloween fancy dress party. One of the traditions the early settlers took to America was the Halloween traditions.So now that you have decided to throw a party here are some good ideas to get you on track.
Kids are not left out with halloween costumes freely available.

The date.

Of course you know the date is 31st October.But the problem is this usually falls on a weekday. In order to make your party work best pick a Saturday directly before or after the day. Don’t neglect to tell you guests well in advance so they can prepare. Four weeks would be good notice.

Costume

You want to encourage as many people as possible to come dressed up as ghouls and ghosts and vampires because Halloween is known as the day of the year when all the departed are meant to return for the evening. This is why the whole tone of Halloween is macabre. With ample notice, people now have the time to either make their own costume or to buy one from an online store.Another reason to plan in advance is because shops tend to book out their most popular characters well before the big day. There are many reasons why you might want to create your own. One is you have will have no concerns about damaging it.It won’t cost you anything.The other is you can generally use more lavish fabrics than any store could possibly offer . You also have the added pleasure of shopping around stores to add to your overall effect and you will certainly come up with some good ideas.

Decorations
Have you been into party shop recently? The products available have grown and improved immensely over the years. Cobwebs and slime are freely available. One big effect you can carry out is to change some of your bulbs in your house into green or red. This immediately changes the atmosphere.

Food
Pumpkins are now available in most supermarkets and if you take a look at some of the designs on line there is no limit to what you could do.  A little colorant changes even basic foodstuffs into something evil looking.

Mummers’ Plays are seasonal events with actors in costumes and fancy dress known as mummers originating from the UK.
They are usually performed as house-to-house party visits and in public places with the participants being dressed up in fancy dress costumes.

The plays generally involve a battle between two or more characters, often depicting good against evil. They often feature a doctor who has a magic potion which is capable of bringing back someone from the dead.

The story usually revolves around the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters. They are often introduced in a series of short speeches in which each person has his own lines of introduction. The main characters, presented in a wide variety of style, with suitable fancy dress costume, are : our Hero, the chief rival, the Fool, and a quack Doctor; the main player is the Doctor, and the reason for the tradito0nal fight is to give him a patient to cure. Typically our hero will kill somebody and the doctor brings that dead person back to life.

Out hero is usually Saint George or King George. His principal rivals are the Turkish Knight or a brave soldier named Slasher. Other costume characters include: Old Father Christmas, Beelzebub, Little Devil Doubt, Robin Hood etc. Despite the frequent presence of Saint George, the Dragon rarely appears, though it is often mentioned.

Occasionally, the performers will wear a fancy dress costume and head gear, which create the impression of being masked. Some mummers’ faces are blackened or painted red by way of disguise, a cheaper alternative to costumes. Many have no facial disguise at all and no costume.

Most mummers groups stopped at the start of the 1st world war. To most people, mumming was a way of raising extra money for Christmas and the play was taken round the big house parties. English versions often end when in comes “Little Johnny Jack his wife and family on his back”. Johnny. traditionally played by the youngest mummer, asks for food and then more urgently for money. Johnny Jack’s wife and family were dolls in a model house.

Those who took part in mumming groups were often unwilling to admit it because they did not like to admit to begging. But it was quite lucrative, and 3 nights of mumming often raised as much as a whole month’s income for farm laborers who mostly made up these groups.

In the second part of the 20th century many groups were reinstated, mostly by folk music and dance party groups. These revived plays are often performed in public houses around Christmas time and the fancy dress begging done for some charity rather than for the mummers themselves.