A lot of Christians have differing views on Halloween and whether to celebrate it with young people.
Personally, I’d rather celebrate light and life than darkness and death. That’s why I’ve always thrown a Light Party around Halloween.
What do you need?
Anything brightly coloured and full of light: balloons (you can even put a glow stick in them before blowing them up), decorations, party tableware, and glow sticks. Lots of glow sticks. These can be bought cheaply from Pound Shops. For a more environmentally-friendly option, you could use glow in the dark paint on lolly sticks.
A Light Party involves lots of games to play, colourful foods to eat, and in appropriate, a conversation about the Light of the World.
Glow stick bowling
Gather a small ball and 10 plastic bottles from your (and others’!) recycling and fill with a glow stick or two. Turn the lights down and play 10 pin bowling!
A photo from our Light Party bowling
Glow stick treasure hunt
Now the nights are drawing in, a walk outside is great when trying to find glow sticks! Walk the route before everyone arrives and hide the glow sticks around it – make sure you remember how many you’ve hidden. Then give everyone glow sticks to wear round their wrists (so you can find the group!) and have fun! Alternatives include an indoor glow stick hunt or allocate teams different coloured glow sticks to find and have a race.
Glow stick silent disco
Go all out and hire some silent disco equipment, turn the lights down and let everyone wear lots of glow sticks!
Glow stick creativity
Give the group lots of glow sticks and the connectors. Get creative and give them 5 minutes to create the most interesting shape or sculpture.
Glow musical statues
Dim the lights, wear lots of glow stick bracelets and play musical statues (play music and have everyone dance. When the song is paused everyone must freeze and anyone who moves before the music starts playing again is eliminated).
Glow stick hoopla
Gather a kitchen roll holder (the kind which sticks up) and glow sticks. Form circles with the glow sticks and create a glow-in-the-dark hoopla. Challenge the group to throw the rings round the kitchen roll holder from further and further away.
Another from our Light Party
Glow stick noughts & crosses
Arrange the glow sticks into a noughts and crosses board and give pairs enough to play! When one person has won, they play another winner until there is only one winner.