Halloween Open House Invite: Fill & Download for Free

Many moons ago we were living in a rural village. So rural that we didn’t have traffic lights, just 3 stop signs in the whole village. We had a farmhouse set slightly back from the main road. There were two huge pine trees flanking the front door. By huge I mean about 50 feet tall.. Huge. When pine trees get that tall the bottom branches tend to thin out. They needed trimmed but we hadn’t got that far. So picture long, spindly branches like spears. We weren’t using the front door, obviously. The night in question happened to be Halloween, of course it was, lol. My house was a beehive of activity, getting kids ready for trick- or-treating. Getting costumes on, setting up for guests. Out of nowhere, there came pounding. We all looked at each other. Where was that coming from? It happened again. Someone was at the front door? Huh. How? Why? With trepidation we all crept towards the door. Scared out of our wits. Remember it’s Halloween.. and DARK outside. We were petrified.. scaring ourselves. I gathered my courage and opened the door, fully expecting to be attacked. A large burly shadow stepped forward. It was a truck driver, sheepishly explaining his truck broke down and asking to use our phone. After relieved laughter we invited him in. He made his call but it would be the next day until someone could get to him. He spent our Halloween with us. We dressed him up and he scared everyone that came to the house! Nice guy and a good sport. Spent the night on our couch. Christmas that year he sent us a gift pack of cheese from Wisconsin, where he was from.

My next door neighbor in a Southern California townhouse called the cops to report my son for graffiti. When the cops arrived my neighbor was no longer home, having skedaddled right after the call. So my husband and I showed them the graffiti and hoped they’d be lenient. Fortunately they were. Even showing our son, who was 4 years old at the time, how their siren worked. Turned out that they were impressed that a four year old could write well enough with sidewalk chalk to spell out “I love you Mommy”. They advised us to avoid our crazy neighbor. We rinsed away the offending graffiti with our garden hose and no one went to jail.Holy Cow! I just remembered another “Police story” with uptight crazy neighbors! Different house. We lived next door to a family we called The Dursleys. They were clearly muggles because they were as unmagical and as unfriendly as the fictional family that mistreated poor Harry Potter. This house was situated at the top of a hill with a long slope behind it and we were good friends with the family living in the house directly below. For the purpose of this anecdote I’ll call them the “Lovegood” family. Typical family. Dad Peter, Mom Theresa and three rambunctious and energetic boys. Their kids were great friends with mine and we would often find the youngest one, Matty, knocking on our sliding glass door around breakfast time hoping for an invite. He always got one. Hey it wasn’t easy climbing the steep slope that separated our houses and getting past our crazy but sweet Labrador, Sparky, wasn’t exactly easy either. Sparky was a lot of bark but thankfully no bite. Matty was the one person that he would allow into the yard without going into Bark-Con Four. But I digress. Back to the point. Anyway Peter Lovegood wasn’t just a cop, he was a DEA agent and although he looked harmless he was actually pretty badass. Once a year around Halloween the Lovegoods always threw a big Halloween party. Most of the people on their street were invited. Oddly (but this probably explains the low rate of crime in our neighborhood) most of their neighbors were also cops of some sort. And pretty much the rest of the invited guests were also in law enforcement. Except for us. We were probably the only non cop family at this event. So this party usually goes on until pretty late. Not terribly loud as parties go, but music and laughter. We could hear it from our house at the top of the hill. Nothing that I would have complained about, if I weren’t there. Around 10 PM there was a loud knock at the door. Someone answers it and there are two uniformed cops standing there. Turns out they were there on a noise complaint from a neighbor. However as soon as the door was opened they realized who lived there and that they knew most of the guests so they came inside, had something to eat and drink (SODAS! Don’t get excited!) chatted a bit, laughed about the “noise complaint” and left. The party continues until around 2AM.The next morning as he was getting into his car, my husband was approached by an unusually happy Mr. Dursley. Dursley comes up to him with a goofy smile on his face and says “Hey! Did you hear that awful party last night?”. My husband doesn’t miss a beat and says “Yeah we were there, it was great! But can you believe it? Some asshole called the cops! It didn’t matter though because Peter IS a cop and he knew them and they stopped to have something to eat and everyone had a laugh about some idiot complaining about a party at 10 o’clock.”. Poor Dursley lost his shit eating grin and skulked back into his cave, undoubtedly cursing us under his breath the whole way. Yeah, we never became friendly with the Dursley’s. They are probably still there, yelling at kids to get off their lawn. It was a weird neighborhood.

I’ll need to set up some assumptions, here, so my answer sounds good.First, it is MY costume party, which presumes I know who my guests are and that I have some awareness of their sensitivities.“Back in the day” when my entertaining was quite lavish, I had an enormous variety of guests, many of whom would never associate with each other on a daily basis. But at our parties, we were privileged to receive priests, rabbis, a US Senator, the Speaker of the state house of representatives, the mayor, and city council members, a stripper, a belly dancer, personages from a motorcycle gang, various artists and musicians representing numerous genres, various business people, tradespeople, chefs, airline pilots, radio station personalities, scientists, stock brokers and police, among others. With their spouses or dates. Many social cuts and strata and lifestyles were there; gay, lesbian, straight, undecided or bi. Black, white, yellow and red. Rich or poor. Christian, Jew, Hindi, Muslim, atheist. Old, young and in between. All of them either our neighbors, customers, employees, or associates; connected with us in one way or another. And all of them were good friends who have enriched my life.And every damn one of them had a hell of a good time and looked forward to our annual Christmas party and open house. No one missed this event (and 2 or 3 others we held during the year). Think about it! A pacifist rabbi, an actual rocket scientist, one of the developers of the Norden bomb sight, 2 lesbians and 1 gay guy all in a circle laughing and having the times of their lives.Refreshments and food were served to suit every taste or dietary preference. And as things wound down around 1 a.m., many stayed behind to help us clean up, and then enjoy the “after-party” for the serious drinking (or other immersion in a drug of choice), or just ice water, thanks.THOSE would be the people who would have been invited to a “costume party” if ever I was to have one. And there is no doubt that every one of them would have been there.The trick, here, is to establish some thematic guidance. For example:We hope you will come to our Halloween costume party. Please impersonate some noted real or imaginary historical, sports, political or entertainment figure. Nothing generic. For example, you can be Tinkerbell, but not just a general purpose fairy. Or Bugsy Malone, but not a run of the mill gangsta. Or the Pope, but not some everyday priest or bishop. That is, you must come as some actual person (or entity) from the past or present.BUT PLEASE: Recognizing the diverse nature of the people who come to our parties, do NOT come as any figure who would be patently offensive to anyone else at the party. Hitler, for example, would NOT be a good choice. If you have any doubts, give us a call.ONE MORE THING: You will be judged based both on how many people correctly identify you and a vote of “best costume.”Now to the question: The selection of acceptable costumes is done in advance, NOT at the time of the party. And if someone DOES show up as a character which is a violation, then you tell them to shed the outfit and join the panel of judges. If you have carefully judged your attendees, this should never to a problem.Hope that helps.