Host a pumpkin carving party for Halloween and make it extra special by decorating your house with pumpkin-themed decorations and by serving lots of delicious and fun pumpkin-themed desserts and appetizers.
Pumpkin Carving Party Dessert Table
Hosting a pumpkin carving party for Halloween is so much fun and it can be fairly easy too.
Carving pumpkins is a fun activity for your party guests and doesn't require a lot of work on your part.
You just need to provide your guests with lots of space to carve and a few tools.
Pumpkin Carving Area
We hosted our pumpkin carving party in 2014 and we decorated our garage so that our guests could carve their pumpkins.
We provided all of the carving tools and lots of paper towels and our guests provided the pumpkins.
Everyone got their own garbage bag. They carved on the bag then stuffed the pumpkin guts in the bag when they were done. That made clean up really easy.
Carved Pumpkins on Display
And be sure to have a space for all of your party guests to display their carved pumpkins.
I usually decorate this shelf but this year I just lined the wood shelf with shelf liner to make sure the wet pumpkins didn't damage my shelf.
When we turned out the lights and the pumpkins glowed, it looked pretty amazing.
Great Pumpkin Patch
Decorating your house for a pumpkin carving party is easy too!
There are so many fun pumpkin decorations in the stores at Halloween.
We got creative and purchased a Linus costume to create our own Great Pumpkin patch in our front yard.
Pumpkins and Polka Dots
Decorating the inside of the house is easy too.
I love polka dots and had been wanting to decorate my walls with polka dots for a party and thought the orange, purple, and black dots worked perfectly with all my pumpkin decorations.
Pumpkin Dessert Table
But my favorite area to decorate was the kitchen.
We built a 3-tiered table for my desserts. I covered the shelves with black sheets and then made cute felt pumpkins for the font of the table.
All of my desserts were pumpkin and polka-dot themed.
Pumpkin-themed Desserts
Our party guests dined on
- Peanut Butter Polka Dot Lollipops
- Gingerbread Pumpkins
- Pumpkin Spice Rice Krispie Treats
- Chocolate Truffle Pumpkins
- Caramel Pumpkins
- Jack-O-Lantern Vanilla Bean Cheesecake
- Biscoff Truffles shaped like pumpkins
- Peanut Butter Fudge Pumpkins
- Sugar Cookie Pumpkins
- Cocoa Krispies Trick or Treat Bears
- Mini Cheesecake Pumpkins
- White Chocolate Pretzel Pumpkins
- Jack-O-Lantern Peanut Butter Cookies
This White Chocolate Popcorn Jack-O-Lantern Bowl was the centerpiece of the table.
The bowl is completely edible and it's filled with more white chocolate popcorn.
It was a big hit with my guests.
More Halloween Desserts
There was even more for my guests to enjoy.
- Halloween Magic Bars
- Chocolate Orange Semifreddo
- Mini Apple Tarts
- Coconut Fudge Polka Dot Pumpkins
- Jack-O-Lantern Brownies
- Black Cat Cookie Pops
Pumpkin Party Appetizers
Our party guests didn't just fill up on desserts. We also had lots of yummy food to eat too.
Everyone enjoyed the pizza, nachos, pasta, chicken wings, and more. My favorite appetizer was the Jack-O-Lantern taco dip.
I decorated the front of our kitchen island and one of the walls with more silly pumpkins.
Then I added polka dots over the countertop and covered the entire thing with lucite so we could serve our pizza directly on top.
I also added pumpkin decorations, pumpkin bowls, and pumpkin plates, and napkins. We even used a real pumpkin to serve tortellini skewers.
My guests also really enjoyed this buffalo chicken dip Jack-O-Lantern.
I decorated the dip with a simple Jack-O-Lantern design.
I got much more artistic when creating my decorations though.
Cute and Silly Jack-O-Lanterns
Years ago, I saw bought some cute pumpkin yard picks and they had these silly faces on them.
I used the designs to create these decorations for my kitchen.
Costumes
Our dog Truffle even joined in on the fun. She looked so adorable in the fuzzy pumpkin costume and she was so well behaved considering we had 84 people in our house during our party.
She loved getting lots of attention especially from the kids and we were sure to have dog treats for her so that the kids wouldn't feed her people food.
Speaking of costumes, check out some of these costumes my guests wore to our party.
Our adult costume contest winners.
- A Talking Tree from Wizard of Oz (Kristie)
- Popeye and Olive Oil (Pete and Meg)
- Mary Poppins (Cheri)
- Lightning Strike (Charlie and Trent.)
I can't tell you how excited I was to see so many creative costumes on the adults this year.
At our first party nine years ago, only one guest was not in a costume. With each passing year, fewer and fewer of the adult guests have been dressing up, so I started offering a $50 gift card and other prizes to entice them. It's working!
Still with all this creativity, if I had to pick my favorite, it would have to be ...
If you have a pumpkin carving party, I'd love to hear about your party in the comments below.
You can see more of our Halloween party ideas here:
- Zombie Party
- Halloween Carnival Party
- Day of the Dead Party
- Carnival of the Creepy Crawlers (carnival games)
- Dead Man's Diner Party
- Gingerbread Cookie Cups - December 2, 2023
- Cheeseburger Skulls - October 15, 2023
- Mini Peanut Butter Cheesecakes - June 20, 2023
J
I always love seeing your amazing Halloween parties! I've been a follower and a fan since you were "Hungry Halloween!" Your edible pumpkin bowl is my fave of this year's creations!
Truffle is adorable! So pretty and so well loved!
beth
It's so nice to hear that you have been following my blogs for so long. I love it! My popcorn bowl was such a huge hit at the party. People were amazed that it was edible. Truffle is my sweetie. I love her more than chocolate!!!!
Karen @ Sugartown Sweets
Wow! What an amazing assortment of food, treats and costumes! I love pumpkins and of course all yours are adorable. I don't dress up myself..but I'm sure a $50 gift card could sway me! Looks like everyone had a great time. :o)
beth
I figured offering a substantial prize would entice people to go out of their comfort zone and find a fun costume to wear and I was happy it worked. I do think my guests all enjoyed the party, thanks!
Jessica Coleman
Thank you for a great party an I love the picture of truffles an faith.
beth
You are welcome. I'm so glad you and Faith were able to join us this year. She looked adorable in her snow leopard costume and so sweet in these pictures.
The Partiologist
I could hardly wait to open this post and see all your parties festivities! Wow, what a great night and wonderful turnout, everything looks beyond amazing - and Truffle is the cutest!!
beth
Thanks! It really was a successful party. I loved how all the decorations came together and am always happy when my guests, even the four legged ones, have a good time.
Tavette
I'm absolutely speechless. Your goody table looks better than all the Halloween stores I've seen. 84 guests??? GEEZ - they must have been parked 6 deep. I don't even know 84 people. You not only made wonderful goodies, but you presented them so well with all the labels, etc. All that takes a tremendous amt. of time and energy. Skull with a straw in his mouth - geez. Leave it to you.
Truffle is such a beautiful girl and, obviously, has good manners, not only to welcome so many people into her home, but to sit so nicely for photos and treats.
It's so much more fun when people dress up.
I'm just stunned that one person can pull all this together. I'll say it again - you're amazing. I'll be looking at these photos again and again.
Where did you get the wonderful paper pumpkins at the bottom of your black table cloth and on your kitchen island? Cute faces.
beth
Thanks Tavette! Fortunately many of our party guests are neighbors, so they just walk to the party. We have a huge front yard with room for about 8 cars in front, but the cars to fill the block.
Truffle is my baby, and I love her very much. She is very well behaved and incredibly sweet and my party guests, especially the kids, love seeing her.
I have help getting this party together. There's no way to do it alone. I have lots of family and friends who pitch in before, during and after the party. My husband and I did it all alone for several years, but it was way too much work. It's nice to have help.
I made the pumpkins. The ones on my kitchen island were made of paper and the ones on the dessert table were made of felt. I love their faces too. I got a package of stickers about 30 years ago with the faces on them and have been drawing them ever since.
Jo and Sue
Love the display of all the sweets. And...pizza....yeah - sign me up 🙂 So much awesomeness. Thank you for continuing to inspire us to bigger and better things 🙂
beth
I was so excited when all the desserts were laid out on the three tiered table. It was the best dessert display I've done for our parties. I really loved it.
Lisa@hooplapalooza
oh. my. goodness. look at that party. oh. my. goodness. look how beautiful your dog is. if i wore a costume for 5 hours straight can i have a visit to your dessert spectacular? 😉
beth
You most certainly would be invited to enjoy some of my desserts even if you came without a costume. My husband didn't wear a costume for the first time at one of our parties, and he still got some treats!
Sue
What an amazing Halloween extravaganza! I'm glad you had a fun venue for featuring all of your amazing treats! Lucky guests! You also have one lucky pup! Truffle (great name!) looks like she loved being a party guest and having treats too:)
beth
Thanks, Sue. It really was a great party. It's fun to be able to share so many of my festive treats with my party guests.
I'm the lucky one to have Truffle. She is a wonderful companion.
Jenna Wood
Truffle certainly looks like she had a blast- is she used to wearing costumes? Maybe it's just the Milk Bones you kept on hand for the photoshoots 🙂 #client
beth
She really did have a fun night. She kept her costume on for almost 5 hours. At first because the costume was fuzzy, she thought it was a toy and wanted to play with it, but once we got it on her, she didn't even seem to notice it. We've dressed her up for a few of our parties and everyone loves seeing her.