Bonfire Night - please can we get your tips for successful parties

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Kids, adults, fireworks - it's a combustible mixture. So how do you make your bonfire night parties work? We need your ideas for games, food, safety, what to do with pets, and anything else we've forgotten. Thanks

I know we haven't even had Hallowe'en yet, but at least we're not asking you about Christmas (yet) or Easter

add a little too much water to jelly so it turns into inedible goo

then hollow out a pumpkin

then put in (wrapped) lollies

then ask the children who knock at your door to put their fingers in MONSTER BRAINS to get their treat

they love it - i swear, kids shreiking and laughing all ove the place - great fun

That is a great idea - my dh will love doing that for the kids

IME kids don't really like fireworks until they're about 5+, so with very little ones I wouldn't bother.

Now to counteract such negativity I will suggest that food must include sticky sausages, roast potatoes and some kind of orange soup. Butternut squash is better than pumpkin.

All pile off to the local display; then back to the hosue for mulled wine, soup, baked spuds, chilli and toffee apples, all prepared in advance. Or bought in advance, for thise of us who have lives that preclude the opportunity to cook...

Lots of buckets of sand.
We always get black sheets of paper and chalk for the kids to draw their fireworks on.
Homemade thick chicken soup
Roasted chestnuts (not the troll )
Hard black treacle toffee
Jackets pots with cheese and beans.
Buy the dog an ipod with headphones!!

Yes, go to a charity big do,, more environmentally friendly, then back home for food and watch everyone elses!

Ear defenders - DS is 5 and only recently realised (when I over-rode DH's objections and kitted DS out with ear defenders) that fireworks are pretty - up until then it turns out he had been too terrified to watch

Find a nearby field/hill/car park near the local charity display, pick up some nice hot chips, flask of mulled wine and a large blanket and enjoy!

I second the ear defenders. I had such a lovely time with DD1 at the town fireworks display last year. She hates noise and had never previously tolerated them. With ear defenders on, she was transfixed and it was lovely to see her face.

I think if you're watching a charity display the least you can do is pay for it!

Food: Marmelade baked sausages, mini spuds with sour cream and chives, ghoulash soup, parkin, cinder toffee and toffee apples.

mulled cider or apple juice good too

My tip is to not bother or go to someone else's house and let them waste money on crap fireworks!

If you are going to host fireworks at home - specify that the guests bring 1 firework each - that way you get some really good ones and everyone doesn't die of boredom/cold watching someone's poor unfortunate DP setting off the 10th rubbish selection box of the evening.

If you are serving Jackets for a large number of people would you wrap them in foil and let people help themselves off a plate?

i wish there was a prize for this...i would clearly win

some of you are simply not trying at all

Ask your DH to dress up in full Halloween regalia.
Put him in a bin outside your door, or at the end of your drive.
Arm him with sweets.
Tell him that it will be great fun to pop up and scare trick or treaters; assure him that his hilarious antics will become part of local folklore, and people from miles around will talk of his witty japes.
Lock front door.
Open wine.
Ignore sirens.

Bobbing for apples

home made candy apples

flapjack

barbecue

custy it's about bonfire night me dear, so you lose.

in a similar vein to HumphreyCushion: get various adults to dress as scarecrows and take the kids for a ghostly walk through the fields. Take a route right past a "scarecrow" which suddenly comes to life and terrifies them. We've done this with the youth group many times and they do find it hilarious.

mini toad in the hole with onion chutney

butternut squash risotto

ginger beer for the kids, ginger beer and vodka for the adults.

Bonfire cake - use red food colouring in a chocolate cake, then red food colouring butter icing to cover (flames) and stick over the top chocolate flakes (logs)

But no fireworks at home I'd say.

Sparklers certainly, but have a bucket of wet sand to put them out in.

ok

my mum used to dip chillis in chocolate and offer them as a trick (don't think she really understood the concept that they did the tricks and she did the treats).

obviously not to be offered to very small children.

dead mans fingers (sponge square made with green food colouring and cut into strips)

eating doughnuts off a sting. get round sugary doughnuts with a hole in the middle. tie them on strings and strings to washing line at different heights. have to be eaten with hands behind back.

what about that coke and mentos thing instead of a firework.