For the first time in Sunshine's history of residential placement, our entire family is allowed to visit monthly. Not only are we allowed to visit, but we are encouraged to have as much fun as possible!
Needless to say, we were super excited to bring Halloween to Sunshine, and actually have a family party with everyone included.
The biggest challenge was coming up with a theme.
Our oldest, Dinomite is fourteen years old.
Sunshine, our youngest, is almost ten, but is developmentally a kindergartener. She scares easily.
Bulldozer, thirteen years old, despises all things scary and horror like as well.
One thing they all like though are Disney Villains. So, after putting the theme to a vote, it was decided that this year we would have a Disney Villains Halloween Party!
Throwing a party in a visiting room at a residential treatment center is completely different than one in your own home.
Everything has to be transported and prepared ahead of time.
You can't hang things on the wall. All decorations must be table based, though you don't know how many tables you will have or how big any of the tables will be.
Most difficult, is that you never know what room you're going to be placed in.
Then there's the time factor. You are only given a certain amount of time to visit.
And let's not forget about the residential treatment center's safety protocols.
With all of those fun little challenges in mind, this is what we managed to pull off!
Disney Villains Halloween Party
The Costumes
As much as I would have loved to give my kids brand new Halloween costumes this year, due to finances, that just wasn't possible.
So, we compromised with black shirts and Disney Villains head pieces. The results were fabulous!
My husband Jason chose to be Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog. His hat was fantastic! It needed to be reshaped when it arrived, but other than that it was perfect. It's so durable and will last for years to come!
I chose to be Cruella Deville from 101 Dalmations. It was super easy to replace my regular wig, with the Cruella Deville wig and enjoy the party. As cheap wigs go, this one wasn't bad at all. I was quite found of it actually.
Dinomite's favorite villain has always been Jafar from Aladdin. It only made sense that he wear a fantastic Jafar hat. The hat was beautifully made and extremely durable. Dinomite's only complaint was that it was a little tight. This makes sense as Dinomite has a larger head to begin with.
Bulldozer chose to be Captain Hook from Peter Pan. One would think finding Captain Hook's hat in an adult size wouldn't be too hard, but it was. We had to settle for a Buccaneer Tricorn Hat. It wasn't the right color. It wasn't the right shape. Thankfully Bulldozer is the easiest going kid of the bunch, and this turned out to be okay.
I will say, Bulldozer's hat was the one I liked the least. It came deformed. The hat threads that kept the tricorn together broke the first time he wore it.
Princess desperately wanted to be Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty for our Disney Villains Halloween Party. I was a little worried about finding the right head piece, because Princess has an extremely small head. Thankfully we found a Maleficent hat that worked perfectly! It was so soft and comfortable. I loved that it was so durable.
The entire Disney Villains Halloween Party was a surprise for Sunshine, so Princess and I decided that she would be the Evil Queen from Snow White. We hoped and prayed the crown headpiece we ordered would fit her. Thankfully it fit both Princess and me, so we knew it would work.
Sunshine absolutely loved the headpiece! It looked beautiful on her. Like the other headpieces we ordered, it was so soft and comfortable. We were all impressed with the durability factor.
Sunshine wore the crown the entire time with the exception of five minutes maybe and didn't complain once about any sensory factors.
Party Decorations
As mentioned previously, we could only use table space for decorating at Sunshine's residential treatment center (RTC). With this in mind, we tried to do the best we could to create a fun Disney Villains Halloween Party atmosphere.
We chose purple, green, red, white and black as a color scheme with a little touch of orange for Halloween.
All decorations and food choices reflected these colors to really make things pop.
A black table cloth was used as our backdrop. Most serving trays were white. We found black and white pumpkins at our local Walmart for $1 each. To add more color we picked up purple lights to scatter on the table as well as battery operated candles.
Plates, cups and silverware were green, purple and red.
Once we had the background basics, Princess and I went to work finding items at home we could place on the table that represented different villains. We also printed out 5x7 pictures of our favorite villains to spread out on the table.
Party Food
Our main focus when making food choices for our Disney Villains Halloween Party was three fold.
- All food needed meet Sunshine's long list of special dietary needs. (Sunshine follows a gluten free, corn free, soy free, dairy free, and sugar free diet.)
- We wanted to try to add as many Disney themed foods as possible related to Halloween and certain villains.
- Everything needed to be transported and prepped easily due to the travel and storage component of what we were trying to do.
In the end we decided on fruit and vegetable platters, a potato bar (not Disney themed, but easily prepared), tortilla chips/potato chips, a few diet friendly treats, and our "magic potion punch."
The fruit platter included fruits in our main party colors, as well as "poisoned" apple slices. In our home, natural sugars found in fruits are still okay for Sunshine.
The vegetable platter included vegetables in our main party colors.
I made my favorite Sunshine diet friendly tortillas, but cooked/baked them a bit longer so they were harder. After finding cute Mickey Mouse cookie cutters at Target, I couldn't resist making them Mickey Mouse shaped tortillas chips.
Sunshine is a huge fan of diet friendly guacamole, salsa, and goat cheese, so she was definitely in her element here.
For dessert I made the most delicious chocolate Mickey Mouse cookies, with Mickey Mouse ears dipped in chocolate. I used sugar free substitute instead of the sugar the recipe recommends. There were also sugar free Jell-O cups in green and red colors available.
Originally I had wanted to find dry ice for our "magic potion punch." But none could be found locally where Sunshine resides at this time.
Instead we made the most delicious diet friendly sparkling apple cider punch, modifying it to ensure the ginger ale was sugar free.
Everyone that tried the punch LOVED it! I don't think I've ever seen any punch recipe I've tried turn out to be such a hit!
Party Games
Our family is a huge fan of board games, though at times, games can be a challenge due to the variety of diverse needs the kids have.
For our Disney Villains Halloween Party, we decided to have a little fun playing the game, "Would You Rather..." with various Disney villain scenarios.
It was a huge hit and continued on during future video chats we had with Sunshine after the party. We wrote down our own questions in advance. Due to Disney's copyright laws, I can't share them. My apologies.
Our second game was purchased specifically for our Disney Villains Halloween Party.
None of the kids had ever played the game Sorry before. What better way to introduce it, than to use the Disney Villains edition of the game.
The last game of the party was Disney Villains Bingo. All of the kids seem to be really into Bingo games right now. As always, it was a huge hit!
Party Crafts
I found the most adorable Disney Villain themed Mickey Mouse ears ornament templates and directions on Pinterest. All of the kids LOVED them!
Had we been at home, the kids would have cut out all of the pieces themselves, but with the restrictions of the residential treatment center, I had to do all of the cutting ahead of time.
If you'd like to enjoy these beautiful crafts as well, be sure to check out the links below!
Evil Queen Mickey Mouse Ears DIY Craft
Disney Ursula Ornament DIY Craft
Cruella Devil Ornament DIY Craft
Mickey Pumpkin Halloween Ornament DIY Craft
Sunshine LOVED these craft projects, especially since they included glitter!
The ornaments were super easy for everyone to make, which meant absolutely no frustration. This was a big deal.
Once home, we hung the ornaments on our Beautiful Halloween tree in the front entryway.
Party Music
To add more fun to our Disney Villains Halloween Party atmosphere, Dinomite and Bulldozer worked together to create a Disney Villains/Halloween playlist on Amazon. It was so much fun to have this playlist on shuffle during the party. The kids danced, sang, and had an absolute blast.
When Sunshine tired out from all of the fun, she came over to me and cuddled for a bit. It felt so great to have have this special moment with her.
Despite being in the "fish bowl" conference room for several hours, we definitely made the best of it!
And now I have this beautiful Halloween picture, capturing the best of memories, of all of my children together for Halloween this year.
Happy Halloween from our family to yours!
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