Rise of the Mummy - Happy Halloween 2024

Halloween has always been a special time for me. When we were living in Sweden, the hubby and I would dress up - I remember our first costumes were a witch and wizard, DIY as usual - and go to parties with our friends.

Ever since I started our themed parties at home in 2020, it has become a tradition for our family to come together to celebrate Halloween. It is always a cosy affair for our family, with just us and the kids - which expanded over the years. I did ask if the kids would wanna venture out or if we should get friends to join but they rejected and said they preferred it to stay as a closed-door annual event for just ourselves. Well, I gladly obliged because these are fond, priceless memories during their growing up years.

That said, Halloween 2024 seemed harder for me than before and at a point, I wondered if the effort was worthwhile and if I should keep up with the tradition. It might be because the kids are growing up or that primary schoolers and teens are just generally harder to manage - many a time it felt like the effort was taken for granted and it didn't help that they would make snide comments at times. Being the emo mama I am, I teared and then got mocked at because no one could understand my whirlwind emotions.

But, I pushed through that and the kids became more supportive when they were in a good mood and we made Halloween 2024 happen after all. If you had seen our social media postings, you would know the theme by now, right? Yes, it is the Rise of the Mummy and this time, we were all transformed into mummies. Why? Well, because I didn't want to spend money on outfits like our Skeleton ones and then keep them under the bed for years. So I thought we could just buy gauze and wrap ourselves up - which we did.

Here's sharing in full detail about our Halloween 2024 celebration, including the characters, decor, activities, bakes, finale and more.

THE SETUP

To get the kids all excited, I gave them each an exclusive invite to the party and we would count down the days to the big day. This time, we held the party on 31st October since it was a Deepavali holiday. I had my concerns as the next day was a school day for the three older ones and as for Ansel, it was gonna be his first ever school concert and he had four dances to perform. Still, with some determination, we made it work and I was happy that we could celebrate on the actual Halloween day itself.

Thanks to our past parties, we have a whole stash of Halloween decorations that we reuse year after year. These include hanging skeletons, inflatable black cat, ghost plushies, pumpkin figuries, vines, bloody footprints, spiders, webs, buckets and more.

However, every year, I would add on a couple of items and this time, they included a tinsel foil curtain and a themed tablecloth. To add on the mood, we also bought some Halloween candies and chocolates from Marks & Spencer which I think were overpriced and not very tasty.

The highlight decoration was this backdrop done using garbage bags and I also printed out Mummy font alphabets and pictures of mummies to stick on it. See the Evil Mummy in the middle? Yeah, that was what we named it and guess what it is made of? Well, newspapers, aluminium foil and gauze, topped with a Daiso mask. I hung it from the air con unit using steel wire as fishing line didn't work. Do you like our backdrop for this year?

The big girl was in the mood to bake cookies and make some chocolate so together with the sister, they went shopping for the ingredients on their own and got to work. 

The chocolate chip cookies were yummy without being overly sweet and the ghost themed was perfect for the night. Well done, girls!

THE CHARACTERS

Time to dress up! We emptied a whole box of gauze and started to wrap ourselves up one by one. The process took longer than expected because it took time to keep the gauze in place and we were also envisioning our designs and improvising as we went along.

The good thing was we had many pairs of hands so we could help each other out. I think dressing up is a must for Halloween and it's fun doing it together and seeing how each other's look and outfit pan out in the end.

Initially, the hubby added this Ninja Turtle looking eye mask for the boys and it looked pretty cute for a while. But it wasn't practical as it was itchy and affected their vision so we had to remove it eventually. Well, at least the hubby tried and I can't be thankful enough that he still makes time to party with us year after year.

Well, mummies don't bleed, I know, but these bloody gauze were just hard to resist and I guess they helped to add some colour to our plain outfits. We also put on black paint on our faces just to get a more gothic look.

Check out our final looks!

- The Invincible Mummy

Strong and powerful, he is the man of the family and our pillar of support.

- The Sleepy Mummy

She amazes us by how she can sleep anywhere, anytime, especially on weekends.

- The Graduate Mummy

The one has just graduated from primary school so the mortarboard was the perfect accessory for her.

- The Sporty Mummy

This boy loves to play all kinds of sports and is always keen to learn and improve his skills.

- The Playful Mummy

The youngest of us all, he can play all day long and enjoy a carefree life.

- The Stay-at-home Mummy

As a mum of four, household chores never end for her, not even when she is mummified.

The Games

Now, let's move on with the games!

1) Charades

Each of us took turns to act out a Halloween related word for the rest to guess. These included vampire, zombie, werewolf, scarecrow, nightmare and more. We had a lot of laughs from this game and if you watch the video below, you will know why too.

2) Tic Tac Toe

Using Vitamin water bottles - which we eventually drank so there was no wastage at all - the kids had to take turns to glide them across the table to play a game of Tic Tac Toe. Fun!

We always include a dance on Halloween and this time round, we had two short ones - "APT" and "Bye Bye Bye". I love it when we all come together to groove to the beat and these moments are special to me, which is why I definitely had to film it. Actually, I filmed almost everything during our Halloween party so that I could make a video for the kids to remember, so bear with me when I have to do NGs or adjust the cameras and tripods, or run around like a busy bee filming everyone in action.

By this time, as our dinner had arrived and the kids were hungry, we took a break so everyone could fill their tummies first. Yesh, we eat the same thing every year on this night - McDonalds! It's always a treat for the kids and they can never say no to nuggets and fries, so let's just feast and indulge for this one night.

3) Shake it off

The next game was one of my favourites! All we had to do was shake and wiggle and get every single ball out of the tissue box tied on our backs. The kids squealed and laughed so much when they saw Papa and Mama competing against each other - it was really hilarious and so fun at the same time.

4) Mummify the pets and babies

Next, the kids were tasked to each mummify a pet or baby using the remaining gauze. It was so cute to see how they each turned out and they would serve a purpose for our finale later on.

5) Bowling

This was a simple game of bowling but with a twist as we wrapped the pins up as tiny mummies. 

6) Mystery Box

Since I had this box from a media drop, I thought of playing Mystery Box where the kids had to take turns to be blindfolded and guesd what was inside. The items were chosen by the rest of the siblings so that everyone had a say.

7) Animal Racing

This was an animal racing game and all the animals had turned into mummies, thanks to Ansel who helped wrap them. The task was to pull the toilet paper towards you and cross the finishing line without breaking - if you move too fast, the water would spill and your paper would definitely break.

8) The Finale

For our finale, which the kids still like to call it as Trick or Treat, the mission was basically to go around the first level to hunt for treats. As always, I like to add a plot so I had the hubby do a voice recording beforehand.

The gist of it was that Papa had been possessed by the Evil Mummy and the kids had to go and save him by removing his mask. Along the way, they also needed to rescue their babies and pets which had been strategically placed in bushes and hidden corners.

Once they had saved Papa, the mission was accomplished and we could finally call it a night. 

As always, we would come together to watch a late night Halloween movie. We did this the next day which was a Friday and everyone could sleep late - yes, I'm not very particular about bedtime and our movie nights usually end at midnight or later. This time, we watched Haunted Mansion starring Danny DeVito and Owen Wilson and the kids enjoyed it a lot, along with the yummy snacks - check out our Halloween Fangs.

So that concludes our Halloween 2024 and it was a blast that would hopefully leave behind precious, happy memories in everyone's hearts. Let's see if we will still do it this year, yeah?