Once
the last person is out the door, you should
immediately look around your house to make
sure that none of your guests have forgotten
anything, such as coats, purses, shoes, parts of their
costume, etc. If anyone has, give them a quick
cell phone
call if not to much time has passed since they
left the party, otherwise call them the next
day at home to let them know. Tag and bag the item and store it somewhere
safe until they can come to retrieve it.
Now
the initial clean-up begins. You probably won't
have the time, much less the energy to pick
everything up and take down all of the decorations,
but you should bag any food waste so that it
doesn't begin to molder and smell over night. Left over
food
that you want to keep should be put in bags and
containers, then put in the
refrigerator or freezer. Be sure to switch off and unplug all electric decorations both
inside and outside the house, and extinguish any
lit candles to avoid a
potential fire hazard.
The next day should be spent cleaning up after
the party. Expendables such as used paper
plates, cups, napkins, eating utensils, soda
cans, and the like should all be bagged and
disposed of as you would any other household refuse.
If you have a local recycling center, take
anything that can be recycled there. All Halloween party decorations,
tableware and the like that are reusable should
be cleaned and packed away for use next
year. If you rented anything from a party store,
you should return it to avoid any late fees.
After
everyone has gone home or at least the next day, you should write down notes
about the Halloween party you just had. What worked well and
what didn't, food, games, decor. This will allow you to evaluate how well the
party went, avoid the same problems in the future and
to have a better party the next time.
We all hope that the people we invite into our
home will be respectful, honest and well behaved, unfortunately this
is not always the case.
If needed, you can create a
"Blackball" list of people that were real trouble makers
or could be a potential problem. Never
invite these people to one of your events again, they had
their chance. People like this seldom change their ways and
often ruin things for everyone else.
Within
a week after the party, we like to send each of our
guests a "thank you for coming" card just to let
them know how much we enjoyed their company.
Pre-printed "thank you" cards can be bought
at most stationary stores or you can print them
yourself on your printer. Be sure to hand write your name
inside
each card to add that personal touch. Be sure to
write an extra thanks to anyone that gave you
special help with the party.
What we like
to do is select our favorite photograph of each guest and
then glue a duplicate of it into the inside of the card
before sending it to them. This personalizes the card for
each guest and will bring back the memory of the Halloween
party. If you want to send out something even better, you
can make a small Halloween scrapbook for each guest with
thirteen photographs that were the highlights of the party.
The
post Halloween party blues have set in. You've spent weeks or even months
planning, preparing and eventually executing your Halloween
bash. Now, in a single night, it is all over. Some people
are relieved that its finally over, others get depressed
because all the fun they were having has abruptly come to an
end, while others have a combination of both these
feelings. As long as these feeling don't last very long,
this is completely natural. If you're sad, just remember that
you have a whole year to plan an even bigger and better Halloween
costume party! And there's always Thanksgiving, Christmas
and New Years!
