Nightmare Before Christmas Party Ideas

One of my hus­band’s favorite movies is Tim Bur­ton’s The Night­mare Before Christ­mas, mak­ing a sta­ple in our house­hold every hol­i­day sea­son from Hal­loween through Christ­mas! And since Dis­ney­land trans­forms the Haunt­ed Man­sion into a this motif every year around this time, we were even more excit­ed to have a Night­mare Before Christ­mas par­ty inspired by this theme! Plus, we already had many items we had used to dec­o­rate for a trunk-or-treat a cou­ple of years back, so we put them to good use for our dessert table and watch party.

To set the scene in wish­ing our guests a scary Christ­mas, I drew inspi­ra­tion from the amaz­ing imagery in the film and the char­ac­ters them­selves. The fun part is com­bin­ing the two very dif­fer­ent hol­i­days into one cohe­sive theme. Incor­po­rat­ing fes­tive items, such as wreaths, trees and bows into the tra­di­tion­al and dark Hal­loween decor is key. Don’t be afraid to get cre­ative with your pre­sen­ta­tion! Includ­ing box­es wrapped in spooky gift wrap not only plays into the hol­i­day gift-giv­ing con­cept, but also helps to add vary­ing heights to your table. Instead of a clas­sic tomb­stone, I carved, glued and paint­ed a foam one to look like the dog house belong­ing to Zero, the ghost dog.

Find an over­sized wreath to uti­lize in your back­drop, but trans­form it into the ter­ri­fy­ing man-eat­ing wreath from the movie! You can eas­i­ly add teeth cut from a white poster board, along with card­stock eyes and fin­ish embell­ish­ing the sides with faux red cran­ber­ries and a large red bow.

A Night­mare Before Christ­mas par­ty would­n’t be com­plete with­out Jack Skelling­ton him­self! For the trunk-or-treat, I had paint­ed a foam pump­kin white, then added the icon­ic eyes, nose and mouth with black paint. I fin­ished him off with a San­ta hat and had the per­fect dec­o­ra­tion! Have fun think­ing of fun ways to embell­ish par­ty items in a spooky way, such as sci­en­tist beakers for drinks, an eye-catch­ing flo­ral arrange­ment and coor­di­nat­ing indi­vid­ual treat box­es with black and white stripes! I also uti­lized chalk­board tomb­stones as food labels.

Now that we’ve pulled all the tricks to set up the Night­mare Before Christ­mas par­ty, we can’t for­get the actu­al treats! You know I had to incor­po­rate cup­cakes, so I put them in black and white striped treat cups and topped them with Jack Skelling­ton fon­dant top­pers I made.

I want­ed to incor­po­rate the icon­ic man-eat­ing wreaths into the food as well, which remind­ed me of these marsh­mal­low wreath treats I used to make around the hol­i­days. Sim­i­lar to marsh­mal­low rice treats, I mixed Corn Flakes, but­ter, marsh­mal­lows and green food dye and shaped them into wreaths. I added fon­dant eyes, teeth and bows, then fin­ished them off with red cin­na­mon can­dies to re-cre­ate the look!

Oth­er high­ly rec­og­niz­able Christ­mas good­ies are gin­ger­bread men, so I gave them a Hal­loween twist with these gin­gerDEAD men! I’m not usu­al­ly a cook­ie baker/decorator and some­times get intim­i­dat­ed by them, but I think these came out so super cute and spooky… or rather, SPOOPY!

Some oth­er treats I made were bug gum­my can­dies I made with gelatin {gelatin dessert and clear gelatin} poured into bug sil­i­cone molds. These make per­fect favors with a treat bag dec­o­rat­ed like the char­ac­ter of Oogie Boo­gie! I sewed the edges of burlap bags with black twine, then added the gum­my bugs in clear plas­tic bags inside.

I used anoth­er mold with bone shapes to make choco­lates for Zero! These were so super sim­ple to make by melt­ing white choco­late can­dy melts {in the microwave or dou­ble boil­er}, fill­ing the cav­i­ties in the mold and let­ting them set in the freez­er for approx­i­mate­ly 15 min­utes. And last­ly, include some pop­corn in your assort­ment {I used a cook­ie jar and pop­corn buck­et from Dis­ney­land} and you’re ready for your movie-watch­ing party!

For more inspi­ra­tion, be sure to check out the rest of my Hal­loween-themed par­ties and tuto­ri­als this season!

Merci Beaucoup!

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