What to serve at teen party?

[partyteen]

I was stupid enough to let my DD invite lots of friends (50!) to our house for the Halloween party.
What food to serve? DD says not to worry, as apparently ‘nobody eats at parties’. Just some crisps, dips, crackers and sweets were offered at the many parties she went to over last year.
Everyone is over 16yo, some alcohol will be allowed (not served by me, but teens will bring their own). I and DD’s dad will be home. Party is between 7-10:30pm.
Is there really no nibbles expected these days at parties?

Don't serve anything, go to the pub or borrow someone else's house (we went to SIL's while she was out) and come back as everyone is leaving.

Also put away any rugs and anything that might get broken such as ornaments and any random quirky things that might catch the eye of the ‘jokers’ of the group and before you know it your random vase has gone viral on 20 Snapchat stories!
I did a full sweep and all that I’d left out was accidentally a nail varnish and 6 lads all painted their nails with it 🙄

Well, yes, by the technical law you're fine to give vodka to a ten year old who's over of a playdate, but I think most parents wouldn't be ok with it.

I don't think it's normal to give access to alcohol to other people's 16yos! It's really damaging to brain development. I wouldn't be at all happy.

Is this for real?! 50 kids sounds a lot (do you live in a mansion?!) and how does she know them all? Are they random acquaintances from college rather than proper friends. I think this is potentially asking for trouble and word could quickly spread about the house party round yours with more than the 50 turning up.

If you do want to host then pizza I guess would work. But I don't know if they would actually be into food and guess many are coming as they are thinking in terms of a party being potentially drinking and dancing.

50. Seriously? How big is your house?

50+ kids (and it will be 50+ by the time it's done the rounds on SM) and you're going to take their alcohol away?

A teenage party of this level needs planned security imo, even if that's other adult family members, who can wade in if it kicks off.

And to stand outside in the street when they're leaving, to make sure they're keeping the noise down and no puking in neighbour's gardens

We always have lots of teens in ours at Halloween. Cocktail sausages pizzas chicken goujons and chips always are a hit ! I always borrow a second air fryer to make things easier . Few bowls of sweets too

My oldest DS was conceived after his father smuggled a bottle of whiskey into a teenage house party in his chelsea boot. Just saying 😁

Mine are now grown but yes, crisps, no dips tons of soft drinks, ice, paper cups and I did supermarket pizza because I am too tight to order dominos. But seriously 50 ?? I limited mine to 20ish ?

Op isn’t giving them alcohol. When my dd was in sixth form most had pt jobs and would bring some alcohol to parties, cocktail cans or white claw were popular with girls.

If they might have alcohol they need to eat first. I'd buy pizzas, cook some frozen chips and they can add cheese to chips if they want to, crisps, Treeselets,

What’s going to happen at 10.30? Most won’t even turn up until 9

Our DS had a couple of parties at this age. Not quite as many but around 40 people each time. They had booze which the guests bought with them. DH and I stayed shut in the living room whilst they had the run of the rest of the house. We also had our bedroom as out of bounds. It was good. We walked the patch a few times. Some of the teens came into the living room for a chat with us. No one got really drunk and nothing was broken and I was pleasantly surprised at the respect and behaviour of all the teens.
I did buy lots of plastic glasses and placed them all around. All the crisps, sweets etc I bought were eaten and they went through a good 2/3 loaves of bread. I am very anti drug and made it clear I would not tolerate any in my house. Parents all collected their teens/groups at the correct time. We live in a village so parents had to collect. I obviously forewarned the neighbours.

Definitely pizzas and bowls of crisps/nibbles. In our experience of older teenage parties (thankfully, all in the garden as summer birthdays) we just ignored the "nobody eats at parties" protestations beforehand and carried around trays of (supermarket!) pizza at about 9.30 pm - a very popular move with DCs' friends, and the trays always came back empty! Friends thought we were the best, but we were really only trying to avoid the consequences of drinking alcohol on an empty stomach, which kids that age simply don't seem to grasp - especially the girls!

It doesn't matter what found you serve but you should never serve alcohol without food.

By saying "party tea" makes it sound so babyish! Nothing babyish about having food at a party 🙄

Pizza

I would buy a load of pizzas garlic breads and bags of curly fries and crisps. Alcohol and no storage at that age is going to be a disaster!

You will not see any spirit bottles . Teens are too clever for that!

My daughter recently had her 15th birthday party. We got popcorn, crisps and nachos but the thing that went down a storm was Jaffa cakes! Recommend buying several packets! But no, we didn’t serve any actual food and everyone was happy.

I’d be surprised if they want to be eating. They’ll have had their dinner before they come. Especially if you manoeuvred the time slightly, 8 - 11 sounds a bit more grown up for 16 year olds. I’d imagine most parties are even later than that.

How big is your house!!

Last party DC2 went to the pizzas all ended up in the bath...

Haha, 50. You must be mad! When DS has parties I do pizzas and garlic bread and they’re always eaten. And I do let them drink but inspired by Peep Show, i have puke points set up around the house

They bring it themselves! You can tell them not to drink it but unless you search them it's hard. Some dont drink (2 of my 4 don't, the other 2 do.)
Pizza, pizza, pizza.
Crisps, crisps, crisps.
Invite some of your (very) good friends over to have some wine on the front room and evet now and then one of you does a wander and ask the dickheads to not be dickheads. And get the sick looking ones outside.