Best Patio Heaters 2021
A selection of the best types of heaters to warm your patio all year round
Yes Halloween is on October 31st, and yes we know the weather in the northern Atmosphere can be unreliable at best, freaking cold at worst.
So don’t get us wrong: you don’t have to host your fire pit Halloween Party completely outside.
But if you are looking to give your guest something a little bit different (or you are simply short on space), the garden is a perfect extension of the house that we often forget about.
It’s not just fun to plan summer BBQs. With some decorations, some creativity, and a good outdoor garden heater, you can have some spooky nighttime fun in your backyard.
Step 1: Create the perfect Halloween party atmosphere
Whether you want to scare your guests or give them an inviting entrance of fun decorations, the trick is to ensure that everyone is comfortable first. You don’t have to spend your children’s school fund to get this started, you just have to get creative.
Lights, lights, and more lights
We’ve written about how putting lights in your garden can be an eco-friendly way to warm up your garden, as lights give the illusion of warmth.
You can buy special Halloween luminaries of course. But if you’re on a budget, simply bring out the Christmas gold and white lights to hang on the fences, it will add an instantly eery atmosphere to any garden party.
Finally, nothing is more inviting than a pathway of lights heading toward your beautifully glowing fire
pit.
If you can, have a look around for some cheap small pumpkins and buy a dozen or more. It will take a moment or two to get them all carved, but add tea light or candles to each one, and you have a perfect spooky pathway heading straight for the main event.
Seating ideas and music
Always make sure you are respectful of your neighbour, but Halloween is one night of the year when everyone is outside making some noise.
Make sure you have two playlists at the ready – one with spooky noises and sounds for when you are doing Halloween activities (or even on arrival for effect) and then some fun tunes to keep people moving and dancing.
Depending on how many people you’ve invited, you may not have enough outdoor seating for everyone. For a truly authentic autumn Halloween fire pit party, consider getting some extra Hay Bales to dot around for seating. They can even double as a pumpkin patch for the kids early in the evening.
Just don’t put the bales of hay around the fire pit – keep them at a safe 3m+ distance or cover them in blankets if they need to be a little closer.
Theming your Outdoor Fire pit Halloween Party
It’s a Halloween outdoor fire pit party. The theming is in the name right?! Sure. But if you want to go the extra mile, why not choose a specific theme?
Like Micheal Jackson’s Thriller for that 80s vibe? Or maybe just a good old Zombies Apocalypse, with escape games to match? Perhaps the wizarding world of witches will allow you to give your guests all sorts of strange and wonderful potions to drink?
It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but if you can fit your outfit and decorations with a fun activity, you’ll create a truly memorable night.
Step 2: Bring out warm comfort food
Even if you live in the most temperate of climes, if you are looking at having a fire pit garden party, chances are you know that at some point you’ll need some extra heat.
The best way to get everyone warm is to give people warm food and drinks. Controversial, we know.
You can get as creative as you want. But if you have a BBQ fire pit that adds a whole load of possibility to your party as you can let people make their own food for the campfire feel.
Outdoor Fire Pit Halloween Food and Drink Ideas:
- Campfire Baked Apples
- S’mores or just roasted marshmallows
- Warm hot chocolate, coffee, cider, mulled wine or hot buttered rum served in thermoses
- Warm fondue with fruit, bread or cookies for dipping
- Sausages or hot dogs on skewers to put in buns
That’s not to say you can have treats and other food items on the side, but it’s fun to incorporate the fire pit in your Halloween party theme.
Step 3: Set up spare blankets and fire pits/garden heaters
Nothing says Halloween like a campfire, which is why if you can you should get at least a small pop-up fire pits or maybe even invest in a beautiful Chiminea.
There’s plenty of eco-friendly ways to light your fire pit if you are conscious of the smoke
You might want to bring out extra blankets, jackets, hats, and scarves. If people are all dressed up at the beginning of the evening, by the end they are going to want to wrap up warm by the end.
If you have a large garden, you might want to invest in a gas patio heater to give people a little extra warmth and a gazebo to give people a little bit of shelter.
These are extra, but not must-haves.
Step 4: How to keep your guests entertained outdoors
There’s plenty of activities you can organise for an incredible outdoor fire pit Halloween party. It all depends on whether you are entertaining friends, family or/and children.
Here are some quick ideas and games that are clean-cut fun for everyone involved:
- Host a storytelling hour: read up or make up a scary story to share around the campfire
- Eyeball hunt: paint ping pong balls and stick them around the garden for little ones to find
- Eat the donut without using your hands: Hang donuts from the washing line on string and make your guest eat the donuts using their head bobbing skills. No water necessary.
- Shoot the skeletons and ghosts: Get some fake skeletons and nerf guns. If you don’t have skeletons, use white paper cups and pain ghostly faces. The rest is drunken history.
- Vote for the best dress: give your guess ballot votes and then the prize winner gets
- Eyeball Beer Pong: Like beer pong, except the ping pong balls are painted as zombie eyeballs. If you have small children, just take away the beer and set them up on a board.
Next level entertainment: horror movie and outdoor cinema
If you’ve got a projector, or always wanted to invest in one, nows a great time.
This is a great way to add a cool decorating factor if you simply want to have the original black and white Dracula or Frankenstein playing in the background. It’s a great way to add atmosphere.
But you can easily set up Nightmare Before Christmas in the early evening for the kids, and then put your favourite horror movie in the end for the adults.
Step 5: Always have a backup plan
At the end of the day, the best Halloween outdoor fire pit party is the one where all your guests are happy.
If you need to move the party indoors because of bad weather, make sure you have the space indoors or a gazebo to keep everyone comfortable.
If you set up the party inside, maybe set up inside as a spooky ghost house. If the weather is looking like it’s going to turn, turn the idea around, move the majority of the party and games inside, and turn the garden into a spooky maze hunt.
Whatever happens, have a ghoulishly good time.
