To make a long story short, we survived a 3 1/2 hour party with 9 German kids plus Oliver and Nora! Ages ranged from 6 to 10. We have learned that to do a home party, one needs to structure activities in order to avoid the event declining into body slamming and yelling, which seems to be the natural state of circa 9 year old boys. Highpoints included a scavenger hunt with two teams that followed visual clues to a treasure box; a "monster lab" in the basement (hat tip to Molly Pasco-Pranger), where Mike took kids in groups of three, blindfolded, and invited them to see a monster that he had taken apart. It was very important that they not look at the monster, he told them, or it would come alive again. He had them touch the monster's finger bones (celery), finger nails (corn flakes), tongue (dog treat), teeth (wet pumpkin seeds), eye balls (peeled grapes), snot (corn starch and water), and brain (cooked spaghetti with olive oil). It was quite something! Lastly, I invented a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-devil. Of course the boys immediately saw that the tail could double as devil's penis (The German word for tail, "Schwanz," has two meanings...). Oh well. We all had fun.
The kids did go trick-or-treating the day after the party with some neighbor kids, and were rather shocked when some people turned off their lights or closed the door in their face.
The booty was rather meager, although it did include "Martin Luther bonbons," which a man had procured from his church especially for the occasion, since Oct. 31st is also Reformation Day.
Oliver and Nora had more success on St. Martin's Day (Nov. 11th), which children celebrate in Germany by processing with beautiful hand-made lanterns through the neighborhood and singing songs about St. Martin. They received a much more positive reception from neighbors, who filled their sacks with candy and even sang along.
