Autumn Tea Party for Kids - Raspberry Thriller

Last weekend, Lucy and I hosted our nieces and nephew for our first ever “Bonaween” party. This was an autumn tea party for kids that blended celebrating Halloween and Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes). We had such a great time! I want to share some of the ideas with you, in case you’re thinking about hosting a similar non-scary party.

Why have a party?

The reason this party came about has an adorable back story. Our niece, May, was wondering why some children were not at school, and her mum explained it’s because they were unwell. May then rationalised that the reason she would like to miss school is so that she could “have lunch with Katherine and Lucy”. When I heard this, I knew that we needed to invite them over for a tea party (lunch included!). They all arrived in costumes (witch, leopard dress and heels, and cat), and yes I dressed up as a rabbit.

Invitations

I figured it would be a nice touch to send them formal invitations by mail. Who doesn’t like getting real mail?! We did check with their mum beforehand to make sure they would be available to avoid disappointment. Below is the invitation we sent. Needles to say, they were very excited!

Crafts and Activities

I jumped onto Pinterest to look for craft ideas. For the Bonfire Night element, we did a craft painting fireworks with cut toilet roles. This naturally descended into finger painting brown globs, but everyone still had fun. Thank goodness I didn’t use glitter! For the Halloween element, we made our own monsters. Note: those are definitely NOSES.

Two activities that the kids love doing with us are yoga and musical statues. We did two episodes of Cosmic Kids yoga, featuring dancing with skeletons. If you’re looking for a good workout, try kids yoga, haha! We also danced to a bespoke Bonaween playlist Lucy made (including Monster Mash, Ghostbusters etc.), playing musical statues.

We were going to watch the BFG, but the littles were worried it would be too scary. Instead, we watched Alice in Wonderland whilst colouring, and Stan practised writing long dinosaur names.

Food Fun!

Food was a bit trickier to plan, because they all like different things and can be a bit particular. Cheese pizza went down well, as did cucumber slices, fruit, and mini cheddars (crackers). Ivy enjoyed the jack-o-lantern tortillas with soft cheese. I made bread stick sparklers in celebration of Bonfire night, which were so cute and really tasty!

Final Thoughts

At the end of the party, they each got little party favour treat boxes with a few chocolates, pencils, and erasers. I wish I had taken a picture! Our themed party was so much fun, and I hope we get to do it again. Halloween is my second favourite holiday after Christmas and it’s nice to be able to share my excitement with the kids. By the way, we got over 30 trick-or-treaters, and Wilbur was a very good boy (see below!).