pumped up about a tim burton themed party

It started as a musing what if.

Toward the end of September, I've been noticing how crafter-bloggers and foodie-bloggers have been sharing their Halloween-related projects and recipes. A lot of those are actually brilliant and easy; it made me want to have a reason to make them.

The thing is, I've never really been a fan of Halloween. As a kid, I liked the candy associated with it, but I basically had a problem with the ugly things. I hated - and still hate - how television stations mostly air spooky specials in October through the first week of November; I'd watch them out of curiosity but have trouble sleeping for days.  I also heard a lot of anti-Halloween teachings at church while growing up. If we were to have a "Halloween" party, we'd do it with candy and costumes but nix the ghoulies and ghosties.

A few nights ago my younger sister mused about holding a Halloween party of sorts, just for the sake of having a nice time with friends. We agreed, of course, that we'd have none of the vile stuff. We knew we didn't have the budget or the resources to pull it off - especially since October 30th is just a mere few weeks away - but we just went on imagining what sort of party we'd want to host.

We came up with this really cute idea: a Tim Burton-themed party. We thought it'd be perfect. It would give us enough room to be dark, but cute at the same time. We even conceived of a menu. It got us so excited, but within minutes we were deflated by the realization that we didn't have time to make it happen.

I tweeted my frustration over our creative idea that could have been, and lo and behold, I got the attention of two other friends of ours who want to hold a party too, just for the reason of dressing up in costume. They thought the Tim Burton theme was brilliant, and wanted in. To make the long story short, we got a few more buddies to ride on, we volted-in, and now party planning is ongoing. Whoopeee!

We agreed to call it a Tim Burton Un-Birthday Party. It's not exactly a Halloween party, but we'll be holding it on the 30th at a friend's house. We're thinking of meat pies (in memory of Mrs. Lovett), finger food and Beetle Juice. We'll be laying the treats and sweets on thick; hopefully we'll have enough chocolate to homage Charlie. We'll have a Tim Burton movie marathon and a few games on the side.



What we're mostly excited about is a reason to play dress up. I don't know what it is about costumes, but some people just love it, ourselves not exceptions. This particular theme is just a brilliant one to dress up to. And since we're serious about making Christ visible in our lives even at our parties, it was natural for us to uninvite zombies, vampires, devils and other vile creatures.

We're all pumped about this. I've been busy thinking up decor and costume concepts. We've come up with cheap, easy ideas that we can accommodate at our tight budget and even tighter schedules; I love how this really brings out the creativity and innovation in us. This just has a lot of potential for fun, and we're already having lots of that just preparing.