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HALLOWEEN
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This ghoulishly fun holiday is celebrated every October 31st in most parts of the Western world, by kids trick-or-treating door to door, watching horror films, going to haunted houses and costume parties, and other frightfully fun activities. While the main type of "gift" exchanged at Halloween is primarily candy (and lots of it), there are some creative ways to offer it to guests at your Halloween event, or to the haunted hostess with the mostess at your creepy neighborhood mansion...

Candy Bar Cakes: You can put together one of these yourself or order one from CookiePots.com for a great centerpiece idea. Gather a large collection of full-sized candy bars and chocolates, as well as a cardboard hatbox or similar. Sort the candy by wrapper color and size, so you can plan out your "design" in the way you arrange all the bars around the box. Use double-sided tape to stick the bars to the box surface, standing lengthwise around the rim, and arranging smaller bars on the top. Fill in any gaps with Hershey's kisses and jelly spiders or worms.

Scary Homemade Treats & Decor: There are all kinds of fun Halloween crafts to do with the kids (or heck, even without them) beyond the traditional pumkin carving. Try dried apple shrunken heads, edible monster toes, or trashbag tarantulas.

Film Fright Fest: For the film fan, put together a collection of horror film DVDs, black licorice and candy corn and wrap them in plain brown paper. Movie suggestions include Halloween, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, Diabolique, The Ring and The Excorcist. Write a message such as "Have a frightful night" or "I know where you live" on the outside of the package using red paint, for a truly creepy effect that only a horror film fan will likely appreciate.

Haunted Library: Looking for something seasonal to give the kids besides more cavities? If you have bookworms in the house, there are many great children's books of a fantastical, scary or creepy-crawly nature. Kids have always been drawn to the mysterious and slightly macabre, and are likely to enjoy any of the following if they haven't devoured them already: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events 13-volume collection, The Unseen by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, R.L. Stein's The Nightmare Room series, Mike Ford's Eerie, Indiana series, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and of course, the ubiquituous Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.