In the olden, ancient days when I was a child, I went trick-or-treating every October 31st. Dressing up for Halloween was the best part—wearing a souvenir Mexican sombrero and poncho, a frilly flower girl/fairy princess dress, or Raggedy-Anne's red yarn hair and pinafore.

My favorite year, however, also included a visit to a Halloween party. The dim lighting, gross-looking food, giant cobwebs, silly games, and my Mexican hat dance impression still stick in my mind. This Halloween party was quite an experience!

Today, Halloween parties are not only lots of fun, but they are also a safe alternative to door-to-door candy collecting.

Halloween parties can be small with a few close friends, they can be held outdoors or indoors, or larger block parties can include neighborhood families chipping in to share their homes, the work and costs. My local community center hosts an annual haunted house with activities for children of all ages. Why don't you throw a Halloween party this year!

Planning a party can be a lot of work and it can be challenging coming up with interesting ideas for invitations, decorations, snacks, games, and so on. Don't despair; there are lots of wonderful ideas on the Internet.

My favorite Halloween party site is the Halloween Fright Site 2000. Here, you'll find articles from Disney's Family Fun magazine chock full of imaginative ideas for crafts, costumes, decorations, jack-o-lanterns, and more. I really like crafts, so my favorite part is the "Crawlies and Critters" crafts page listing instructions for making various cats, bats and spiders. There are also lots of directions for creating "Ghosts & Body Parts" and "Gross & Spooky Stuff" too.

The "Howling Parties" section offers many party ideas, plus whole parties ready to go with themes, games, food, and decorations outlined. For instance, the Slimy Halloween Party features Zombie Tag and Slime Pit games, as well as a menu of Skeleton Crude-ite served with Dip for Brains and Chocolate Slime for dessert.

This site also has a useful article on Halloween party planning tips. The authors mention a few important things to keep in mind, like avoiding really scary or realistic decorations when young children will be guests. Even at my age, I find some of the food and decoration ideas just too gross!

Billy Bear's Throw A Halloween Party is a great place to find party ideas for younger children. You can print out invitations, writing paper, awards and certificates, coloring pages and activities to use at your party. These printables feature cute smiling pumpkins and other non-threatening Halloween characters. Many of these pages require a color printer.

Another good source of Halloween party ideas for little tykes is the Sears Portrait Studio. You'll find lots of fun pages which can be used at parties: coloring pages, masks to make, and Halloween bag decorations. As always, these sites offer lots of online games, puzzles, activities and computer desktop decorations.

Up until a couple of years ago I had never heard of Halloween carols. This site has the lyrics and midi files for each tune, usually a Christmas carol or other familiar song. A sing-along would be lots of fun at a Halloween party.

Girls and boys alike will find a few good party ideas at A Girl's World Halloween Spooktacular. Read party planning tips, make recipes submitted by visitors, and find out how to create some crafts and decorations. Instructions are very brief so you will need to use your imagination too. I particularly like the page of themes; while Halloween is a time of ghosts, ghouls and witches, you don't have to have a scary graveyard party. Instead, you can have a wild west event, a 50's sock hop, an Alice in Wonderland tea party, or even a Star Wars gathering with aliens, Darth Vader and Rebel heroes.

Goosebumps: A Ghoulish Gathering has party ideas based on the Goosebumps books series. You can print out and color invitations and decorations. There are also ideas for activities, treats and party favors. A lot of the party favors are actually Goosebumps products but there are ideas for inexpensive items too.

Speaking of popular books, I think that a Harry Potter Halloween party, or even a Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party, would be a great idea. I couldn't find any party ideas on Scholastic's official Harry Potter site, but I did come up with a few of my own. For a Harry Potter costume you can don a striped shirt, an invisibility cloak and a broomstick. If you don't already wear glasses, you can pop out the lenses of a cheap pair of thick-rimmed sunglasses and place tape on the frames above your nose. Decorate your party room with magic wands, Daily Prophet newspapers, sparkly dust for casting charms and spells, and anything else that reminds you of wizards, witches and magic. The drinks you serve can be called the Elixir of Life, ordinary cherry lollipops can be transformed into Acid Pops or Blood-flavored Lollipops, and dessert sherbet balls can be labeled Fizzing Whizbees. Visit the The Unofficial Guide to Harry Potter Fun, Facts and Trivia and use the trivia to come up with more food and decorating ideas like I did.

Scholastic has an online Wizard Trivia game which you could turn into a party game by writing out the questions and answers on recipe cards. You can print word games from Harry Potter Revealed to solve for prizes. Print and fold a Fortune Teller from the Unofficial Harry Potter Fan Club to determine your friends' futures. The Fan Club also has its own brief list of Party Ideas.

Check the Halloween section of Berit's Best Sites for Children to find more coloring pages, activities, games, costume ideas, crafts, decorations, and recipes that can be used at your party.

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Berit's Browse is where Berit highlights her favorite sites on various themes and discusses her opinions and observations about kids' sites and kids on the Internet. The column is also a great place for to cover topics that you are interested in. Let her know what you'd like to read about!