Traditional Halloween Dinner

I thought I would share one of our families' Halloween traditions. This is our Halloween dinner. We don't have it on Halloween but some time the week before, the night before if possible. We use to try to sign up to feed the missionaries on the night we had it, but we haven't had the opportunity for the past couple of years. It is fun to see their eyes light up when they get to have one the glow sticks that I use for part of the decorations :-) My decorations are a little on the skimpy side this year as we still have most of our stuff in storage still waiting to get the house finished. The picture above, lights on, the picture below, lights off.

Here is what's on the menu. Dinner in a pumpkin. Yes, that smiley guy there is stuffed full of a hamburger rice casserole with mushrooms and water chestnuts. The pumpkin is baked with the rice in it. If you happen to like pumpkin you can scrape the sides and enjoy some of it, too. Next to the pumpkin are pumpkin muffins. I always forget how much I like these. The salad we call Broccoli Boo Salad. It has fresh broccoli, mandarin oranges, bacon, red onion, and raisins with a homemade dressing. Then we always make sure to have some sort of witches brew. This year was apple juice with dry ice. Who doesn't like the spooky effect that dry ice creates? Then for dessert, Ghosts in the Graveyard, which is basically dirt (oreo) pudding, with cookie tombstones, whipped cream ghosts and candy pumpkins. Sometimes we add some gummy worms. The glow sticks add to the atmosphere and the kids love to get one each year.

I had to include these pictures I took of Azurdey and Talon while I was making the Ghosts in the Graveyard. As you can see they had a lot of fun 'helping' me. With two types of pudding and whipped cream there were lots of bowls that needed scraping.