Theme Parties

Costume choice:

Flower or shell leis, plastic ones if need be, flowers worn in the ladies' hair, brightly colored flowered shirts, cameras around the neck, flip flops or sandals.

Food:

Chicken or pork with pineapple and cherries on the top, chicken salad in a hollowed-out pineapple, rice, sweet potatoes, tropical fruit salad or fruit kabobs, Hawaiian bread, macadamia nut ice cream, fruit slushes.

Music:

Don Ho type (check your local library).

Games:

Place Hawaiian words on brightly colored cards around where your party will be, then tell your guests they need to use those words in their conversations that evening. Have a hula hoop contest, have guests do the hula or limbo. Play a trivia game with questions about the five islands, Pearl Harbor, and TV shows such as Magnum P.I. or Hawaii Five-O. If outside space is not a problem, play volleyball.

Decorations:

Fish nets, shells, coral, tropical house plants, pineapple, and/or coconuts placed around the rooms or outside.

Costume choice:

Hippie items such as cut-offs, bell bottoms, tie-dyed clothes, beads, headbands, long hair (wig if necessary—even men have done this!), painted clothes, platform shoes, sandals, bare feet, flower child items, thick eyeliner on women with white lipstick.

Polyester nerd ideas would be a leisure suit, any polyester clothing (cheap and easy to find at the Goodwill and Salvation Army Stores.)

Food:

Junk food such as chips, dip, popcorn, tacos, pretzels, peanuts, mini egg rolls, corn dogs, gelatin and lots of cans of spray whipped cream. Have sodas to drink.

Music:

From mellow folk tunes to rock 'n' roll.

Games:

Twister, the Ungame (a board game you either remember well or have never heard of), UNO, any card game, backgammon, chess, and checkers. Begin a rap session on the meaning of life. It can lead to a variety of subjects.

An icebreaker to use when 75% of your guests have arrived is to have them introduce themselves using their real name and then a "hippie" name, i.e., Rainbow, Fawn the Flower Child, Star, Moon, Flower, Sunny, etc.

Decorations:

You can remove all the furniture except the couch (cover it with a "hot" colored striped sheet) and a low coffee table. Borrow bean bags from a youth group and throw large pillows around on the floor. Added touches might be a lava lamp, a black light, posters, candles, incense, lots of potted plants, and beads hanging off the lamps and in the doorways. Keep the lights low and the music high.

Food:

British dishes such as: fish and chips, steak and kidney pie, bubbles and squeak, crumpets with devonshire cream and lemon curd, hot tea with milk.

Music:

Classical, especially violin pieces since Sherlock played the violin.

Games:

221B Baker Street, a "bookcase" board game. Clue would be a suggestion. There are numerous mystery and murder mystery-type games.

The most important game is the icebreaker. Pin a piece of paper on each person's back when he/she arrives. They have to go to others and ask yes/no questions about what/who they are. Guests can ask no more than three questions of one person, but they can ask as many people as they want until they guess who/what they are. The goal is to mix. Examples for this theme are: gun, vile of poison, Moriarity (the main villain in Conan Doyle's book—Sherlock's main enemy), cigar, magnifying glass, cape, footprints, trap door, bank vault, sword, knife, suit of armor, rope, diamond, glove(s), shadow, and any names of other characters people might know such as Dr. Watson. (At one faculty party, this icebreaker went on the entire evening!)

Play a Sherlock Holmes video on the TV since some people will not care to play the board game or there may not be enough spots at the game tables.

Decorations:

Dry ice to create "London fog," "Big Ben" made out of a stack of gray painted cardboard boxes with a real clock face. Have a variety of toy weapons, clues/evidence, Conan Doyle's books (use local library).