How to throw a Halloween Soiree by Heddy Johannesen

First create spooky invitations for all of your friends, whether furry, human or undead. Or jazz a Facebook party event page and invite them there. Plan it ahead of time. Then enter your kitchen, summon your inner kitchen witch and throw open your cupboards. After a good scrub clean, evaluate what ingredients you have. Then brew some good munchies for your party ahead of time.

Then dig up your best Halloween decorations from last year. Or if you are like me and other weird people, you left your decorations up all year from the last creepy shindig. A black spidery tablecloth topped with black dishes, cutlery and black goblets are purrfect. Put them on the table and see your table set come to morbid life. Prepare a meal such as a hearty soup with fresh baked pumpkin bread and coffin cookies or chocolatey cupcakes. You did store your goodies next to the cold body parts in your freezer right?

Light candles, burn incense such as frankincense or mugwort (good for psychic divination), and sip spicy cider. Save some for your guests! Clean the house from top to bottom, including last year’s cobwebs. Kick long dead Aunt Em out the back door. No one will ever suspect and I won’t tell!!

Adorn the Halloween tree in the corner with the bats from the cellar and play Halloween tunes on the CD player. When your guests stroll in the door, they will be amazed but you’re not done yet. Entice them with spicy cider, carved pumpkins and offer a deck of tarot cards or share a tea leaf reading. Every guest could get a turn at their fortune being told. Set the table with bowls for that hearty stew you brewed and keep the pet bed in the bedroom? Wait- you don’t have a pet. Oh, the neighbor’s demon dog, oh throw him a human bone to gnaw on. He’ll be fine.

By now, the guests have feasted and settled. But you’re not done yet! Time to wake the dead! Bring out the Ouija board for the not faint of heart. Or burn a black candle dipped in mandrake essential oil and begin scrying to gaze into the future or spirit realm.  Cue the organ music in the background! Eat Halloween candy till your teeth rot and gulp ale while you wait for Houdini to materialize in your boudoir.

Don’t be surprised if your ancestors show up at the soiree too. They remember us and will guide us through life. Leave an offering of ale, apples or coins to avoid angering the spirits. Halloween is a magical time and pleasing the guests whether alive or dead should be what a party is all about, especially at Halloween. We are all blessed and we receive more guidance through life than we think, not only from the living, but from the dead if we are but aware of them. I wish you all a magical Halloween.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: An HWA Final Frame t-shirt, black with the red logo.

Bio: My writing has appeared in Untimely Frost, One Night in Salem, Wax & Wane: A Gathering of Witchy Tales, The Dark Ones: Tales and Poems of the Shadow Gods, Circle Magazine, Witches and Pagans Magazine, Essential Herbal magazine,Naming the Goddess, and The Queen of the Sky: A Devotional Anthology in honor of Bast.

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