Pajamas & Popcorn Party

Inspired by Spooky Little Halloween’s 2022 issue and the interactive DVD experience, “Monsters Crash the Pajama Party”, I hosted a “pajamas & popcorn” Halloween party for my family. Who doesn’t love a pajama party, complete with popcorn treats and Halloween movies? Finding myself with a handful of free weekends in October, I decided to do just that! I LOVE hosting big themed parties. Regrettably, our current living arrangements don’t really allow for parties. Additionally, we haven’t really known enough people around us to host a large-scale shindig. In spite of this, I had been bitten by the party bug. It was was time to try my hand at hosting a micro-party.

Naturally, I wanted to do a little more than just making the kids wear pajamas and serve them a fresh bowl of popcorn. Basically, I wanted this to feel a little more special than our standard movie nights. Hopefully, I pulled it off!

Makes for Pajamas & Popcorn Party

Naturally, I host a party, no matter the size, without designing some fun pieces. I made movie and concession tickets to use throughout the evening. Then, I got the littles involved by decorating the trays and buckets they would use for their food.

Movie Tickets, Concessions Sign & Punch Card

Being that this was a Halloween movie night party, the tickets had to be themed as such. The littles would each get to pick one movie and the ticket would be torn to show it was redeemed. Then, they were each given a punch card that they could use at the “concessions” stand. They could get two servings each of a drink and popcorn. Then, with the second pail, they could trick-or-treat at the stand twice by filling up their buckets. Both myself and the littles got rather excited over using the punch cards. Me, for getting to punch, and them for getting to redeem them. It was a bonus touch, but one that added a lot of extra fun to the evening.

I’ve made these files printable should you wish to make them yourself. I highly recommend making some if you choose to do a movie night with your little ones. It’s unexpectedly fun!

I printed these out on orange cardstock and then uploaded the file into the Cricut Design Space as a “single layer” for the silhouette to cut it out. However, you can upload as a “Flat Graphic” if you want to print then cut all in the Cricut Design Space. Since I have the original file, I like doing the first option and print directly from Illustrator. Since Cricut’s margins are really weird, not everyone likes to play with the alignment for cutting, so doing “print then cut” in Design Space is a great second option. Please keep in mind that if you use this as a “flat graphic” in Design Space, it will be smaller than pictured here.

Treat Tray & Serving Buckets

I found these lovely wooden trays on clearance at Michael’s and felt they would be perfect for holding all the food and drinks while we chilled on our bed. I had the littles paint the trays. They had the freedom to decorate however they wanted and in whatever colors they desired. I know they’re not super Halloweenie, but I wanted them to be 100% decorated by my littles, weird color choices and all. Then, the little decorated their trays and buckets with stickers and acrylic paint markers. This was a great way to use up the collection of stickers I’ve amassed from conventions and spook purchases. Finally, we coated them in some modge podge to make sure the stickers don’t fall off over time.

Setting Up for Pajamas & Popcorn Party

Next, it was time to set the space. Since we did this in our bedroom, I wanted to be sure the mess would be as minimal as possible. I recently invested in a long pillow for our headrest, so I turned it at one angle and lined up our smaller pillows across the other angle for optimal movie-watching comfort. Then, I ran some string lights all across that half of the room for mood lighting. As a final touch, I repurposed the littles’ puppet theater as the concessions stand. This is where they could serve themselves popcorn, sweets, and treats like noise makers and silly rings. You’ll also notice my hand hole punch on the night stand for easy card punching. Not shown here, I also hung up my orang and black mylar curtains outside our bedroom door to make for a festive entrance! The littles really loved this part.

Treats for Pajamas & Popcorn Party

For food options, I had already been planning to make a stew, which was served between their movie choices at the dinner table. Meanwhile, I made both new and traditional sweets for the event the night before, including rice Krispie balls, ghost tootsie pops and chocolate lollipops. Personally, rice krispie treats are the best when homemade and I had been having a craving for them. On the other hand, the chocolate lollies were new to me and although they didn’t turn out as pretty as I had hoped, the littles LOVED them. Plus, I could forgive their flaws since their flavor was delightful. We also put out red vines and gummy bears we already had on hand and picked up a bag of Halloween-themed chocolates to put among the homemade treats.

For savory treats, we had cheese-stuffed meatballs, cocktail shrimp, and a charcuterie board. As the evening wrapped up, I realized we may have had a little TOO much food. However, it all served as great leftovers the next day so nothing went to waste.

To wrap up our concessions stand was the popcorn! I have loved these popcorn salts from the Amish Country Popcorn Store for a long time. Since we recently came into ownership of a microwave popcorn bowl, I wanted to try out the Amish Country popcorn kernels too. The verdict? Yummy!

How Was the Pajamas & Popcorn Party?

Even though my plan had been to spend the whole day snacking and watching movies, I didn’t get everything together until Saturday afternoon. Still, that did not take away from the party, just delayed it a little bit. I was a little frustrated by how time hadn’t been on my side to get everything together the night before. However, I believe the littles had a lot of fun. I know I certainly did when it came to pulling back the curtain for them! I had the “Monsters Crash the Pajama Party” dvd playing as a preshow and the littles both loved the interactive aspect of it. We spent more time searching for things on the disc than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise.

For our movie selection, Lil’ Boo redeemed his ticket first with hi choice of “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Little Monster came back from dinner ready with her pick of “Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween”.

Now that I have a better of idea on how to prep for this and set it up, I’m looking forward to revisiting this again next October. Or maybe…even sooner for Christmas season!

Will you be hosting a small at-home party with your family? What are you doing? Tell me all the details!

It is an honor to be amongst my fellow crypt keepers once more and I am so excited to see how everyone is sharing the Halloween magic throughout the month.