Hallowe?en was once all about safe, innocent fun ? dressing up and knocking on the doors of family, friends and neighbours, but today?s world has changed, and trick and treating is not always what it used to be.

As a result, parties at home and other safe environments are growing in popularity, which doesn?t mean the end of fun, but rather a greater way to make the occasion an event to remember. As the perfect host or hostess, here are some ways to entertain your guests, whatever their age, and leave them with memories of wonderful celebration.

Have kids sit in a circle and pass small pumpkins or gourds when the music is playing. When the music stops the child without a pumpkin is out. Continue until there?s a winner.

Form groups and have a variety of old clothes, pillowcases for heads, markers, newspaper, straw or shredded paper. Groups have 20 minutes to create a scarecrow. Give prizes to the scariest or funniest, then place outside.

To make the game more interesting, assemble six to ten items which can be used to build a scarecrow (jeans, hat, string, straw/shredded paper, et cetera) and hide them, either around the house or in the yard.

Divide guests into two teams. One at a time, have a person from each team search for one item. After all the items are found, each team has to construct a scarecrow using all items. A prize to the team finishing first.

Have friends with video cameras create a scary or humorous five-minute film in the style of ?Blair Witch?, then have a Hallowe?en Film Festival at the party and play the tapes. Ideas could include ?Hallowe?en is here and I don?t have a costume?.

Hide candy in cellophane Hallowe?en bags, and add a little note inside the bag saying ?Congratulations, you have won a prize?.

Supplies: At least 13 Apples (12 red and one green), string, blindfold, and a tree branch. Tie each of the apples to the tree so they can swing freely. To keep observant kids from memorising where the green apple is very loosely tie the strings together.

How to Play: Select a child and tell them to close their eyes and make a wish. As they do you blindfold them. Once blindfolded you spin them around and recite the following rhyme:

?13 Apples hanging from a tree,

12 dark red and one bright green

blindfolded, spun around, and then set free

Is that green one meant for me??

Release the apples and point the child in the right direction. They then will stumble about and pick an apple. If they get the green one their wish will come true. Before the next child goes, replace the apple and move the green one. (Plan on letting each kid keep the apple they pick). If you wish, place a sticky label with a number on each apple, with each number corresponding to small gift or prize.

Have one child leave the room. Then take a large sheet and have a different child stand and hide under the sheet. Mix up the remaining children in the room, then allow the child who left the room to come back inside. By a process of elimination, that child has to guess who the ghost is. Then that ?ghost? goes out of the room and a different child becomes the new ghost. Mix up the remaining children and repeat until all of the children have had a turn being the ghost.

Ahead of Hallowe?en have children make papier mach? pumpkins out of newspaper and balloons. After the papier mach?e has dried pop the balloon and have them paint the pumpkins orange and draw faces on them. Prizes for the funniest, scariest, et cetera.

Divide guests into teams. They should be fully costumed and armed with instant cameras. Give all teams the same list of items to collect, but with the items listed in different sequences. Each team races around the property/area/Island looking for the items. First team to get all the items in the shortest time wins a prize.

Divide guests into teams, each armed with a video camera and a list of Hallowe?en characters. Give teams a set time (two hours max) to hit the streets and find trick-or-treaters wearing the costumes on their list and videotape them. Once the time is up, teams return to the house to view each other?s footage. Team with the most costumes on the list wins.

Research and create questions about Hallowe?en, scary movies, or questions about what frightens your guests. Prize for the winner.

Use an old dressmaker?s dummy and put a ?devil?s mark? on the dummy with a felt tip, then wrap the whole dummy in swathes of crepe paper. As people arrive they will be given a pin with their name on it and be invited to ?prick the witch?. At the end of the night the witch will be carefully undressed and the person whose pin is closest to the ?devil?s mark? wins a prize.

Similar to Pin the tail on the Donkey, but instead of a tail use a lump of chewing gum as a wart. Draw a witch?s face with a wart on a piece of poster board. Blindfold each child as his/her turn arrives, spin, point in the right direction. The closest piece of gum to the wart on the witch?s face wins.

An evil witch has stolen the Hallowe?en candy, and the kids need to find her and get the candy back. Set clues as follows: Scatter brooms around the yard with the handle pointing in the direction you want the children to go. (If you don?t have brooms use something else).

Start at the beginning of the broom path and search with flashlights for the next broom, and the next. At the end of the line have a big pot of candy waiting for the kids.

Stick up large Hallowe?en-themed pictures (e.g. witch, bat, ghost, black cat) in the four corners of a room. Play some music and when it stops, each child runs to a corner (if you have small numbers you can limit the number of children in each). The music operator without looking then calls out one corner. The kids in that corner are out. The last person left is the winner.

Sit children in a circle. Each child participates in telling part of the story. To get started, either select an outgoing child, or, if the children are younger, write up some ideas and get them started yourself. Example: It was a rainy, cold night as they walked along the road, but in the distance they saw a house...

Then pass the story on to the next guests, each one adding their own intrigue or surprises. Continue until all guests have participated and story is complete. Without the participants knowing, tape the telling of the story and then play it back to them. Depending on age, you may want to turn off the lights and have the storyteller shine the flashlight under each child?s face as they tell their portion of the ghost story.

Fill a jar with candy corn. Guests guess how many pieces are inside. The nearest guess wins the candy jar.

Fill a big pot with little prizes wrapped in black and orange paper, and throw in such extras as spiders, cobwebs, Styrofoam packaging popcorn,etc. to make it look like a big stew. Then have guests reach in for a prize as they leave.