Fall-Fest and 3 Lessons Learned
This year our church held a Fall-Fest celebration on 31st October as an alternative to the tradtional Halloween Celebrations, so instead of dressing up and having too much sugar Trick or Treating, we went to a party where…..the kids dressed up and had too much sugar!
Posting my lessons up in 3 parts
Lesson 1
Despite only arriving home on the afternoon of 31 October after a week at the cottage, it is possible to simply decorate the house.
A. Open up the GENUINE AMERICAN CANDY delivered personally by a lovely blogger during her irish trip, and discover it tastes very different to how you imagined! However the kids loved sharing it with their friends, telling them all it was REAL!
B. Arrange artistically with a fake spider or two
C. Wrap some tangled leftover garlands from last year around the base of the table lamp – Voila!
Lesson 2 – Remember your “please and thankyou”s for they are the magic words
We did do a wee bit of Trick or Treating first just in our own street prior to going to Fall-Fest, but on a much smaller scale than usual.
Here are my kids attempting to look scary – but believe they can be quite scary without the aid of costumes.
My daughters no longer want to “dress-up properly” but it was a good excuse to wear lots of black!
As it is so dark here by 6pm after the clocks changed back last weekend, any photos I attempted to take were a disaster – so none of those to share, sorry.
At one door the kids were offered apples – my polite son said “No thanks, I don’t want an apple, can I have a lollipop please?” At least he remembered his pleases and thanksyous!
3. Fall – Fest was a huge success!
So down at church a huge amount of effort and hard work had gone into the planning, promotion, decorating and staffing the event.
As I don’t really want to put photos of other kids on my blog, here are a few of the wee details that made the night such a success :
We were greated by “snow” on the way in – for those of you from colder parts, even this much (artificial) snow is a cause for excitement!
Lots of pumpkins
The table centres in the free cafe
Scarecrows
Some of the many (all free) activities included – fancy dress competition, bouncy castle, badge making, basket ball hoop, table football, mini-golf, family portraits, beading, craft, bun decorating, nail painting, hair braiding, balloon modelling, “fairground” games, puppet show, free popcorn and free party bag…….
Thanks to the lovely Katie Hadfield (a digital designer) I was able to use some of her details to create a digital frame to be printed with the free family portraits. As many kids and some adults were dressed up there proved to be some interesting “family” poses – including pirates, fairies, aliens and the like!
The evening ended with everyone going to watch the firework show by the council in the local park. Despite very heavy rain earlier in the day, the evening was dry and clear. There was even a full moon!
Lots of families from the local community joined the church families, and nearly every room in our church was filled.
So the lesson learned from Fall Fest?
Our church is full of some very talented people who willingly gave of their time and gifts to create a memorable even for all who attended.
So what have you learned this week?
And have you ever attended a non-Halloween event such as our Fall Fest?
You know I love to know!
For more lessons visit Musings of a Housewife
PS If you are from the UK – visit HERE and leave a comment to WIN an M&S voucher.
Great photos, as always! You don’t have candy corn there? I propose a swap then – I’ll send you candy corn if you send me Cadbury Eggs… ;o)
I was just thinking about you today and then you turned up in my stats! How are you? Looking pretty good from the fun described in this post! I love the pumpkins with the scripture and I’m 39 and still looking for reasons to wear lots of black! Great pictures!
Love that you got to try some American candy! What did you think?
Fireworks? On Halloween? I want to live near you!
What did you think of the Peeps?
Just for the record, that is some of the worst (but most fun) American candy. Although I have to say, I can never have just one. As I kid I would put the candy corn on my teeth and try to look like a vampire…yes, I am a dork. 🙂
That party looked fabulous. The decorations were amazing, you did a great job capturing them.
What a great Fall Fest! By the way, Pixy Stix are basically just flavored, colored sugar in straw shaped paper wrappers. You basically pour straight sugar into your mouth!!
Fall fest looks like a blast – I’ve never done anything like that before… just trick-or-treating and spooky (but not TOO spooky) halloween parties. Glad the kids enjoyed the candy… I can down a package of either of those in less than an hour. 😉
From your pictures, I think the day was a success! Lovely post!
Wow, it looks like Fall-Fest was a great success! What a lovely event, your photos are gorgeous as always. The frame you made looks wonderful, thanks for choosing my doodles!
I’ve also heard that candy corn is an acquired taste! LOL
That sounds like a lot of fun! We didn’t do anything like that around here this year … just a normal Halloween with traditional TOT’ing and hauling in twenty pounds of candy.
GREAT photos – once again! We set our clocks back on October 31st – so it wasn’t dark when we started.
Your festival looks like a huge success! Glad you got to try American candy – did you like the pumpkin peeps? Not a peep fan, myself. 🙁
The Fall Fest looks lovely. We had something similar at our church–well, we do every year, but it is not always on the 31st. I liked having it on the actual day so we could just do that instead of Trick-or-treating. SO much easier to get all the candy in one place instead of trekking from door to door!
wow… i love your story about your fall-fest. as for my side of the world, we didn’t do anything. i really don’t know halloween and i don’t think we have any activities like that around my neighborhood. i hope to experience something like that someday… maybe when we move to another country where they have big celebrations during this time of the year.
have a nice week!!!
Great pictures! I love that the “real” candy was a hit. Your girls definitely pulled off being scary, they freaked me out!
Glad you had such a wonderful Halloween 🙂
I’ve learned that I need to attend your church. Talented people, indeed!
Great pictures makes Halloween look so happy as it is I simply love that celebration.
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com
I liked the remark about the children being scary enough without costumes! I’m a bit doubtful about Halloween because of the connection with unChristian stuff, I don’t mind the kids celebrating as long it doesn’t go too deep. Your post is a great read as usual, loved the photos!
Love the pictures Jan!! And the night looks it was wonderful.. I LOVE the Scripture on the pumpkin!! It made my whole night!!
Blessings to you sweet girl!
Amanda
Sounds like you had a great time! I enjoyed your photos.
-FringeGirl