Halloween falls on a Friday this year. That means no worrying about bedtimes or having to rise bright and early the next morning to get the kids ready for school. You can truly enjoy Halloween, and the best way to ensure a safe and fun time is by hosting a party at your house.

First, you need to decide if you’re having an all-adult party or if you’re hosting a neighborhood get-together including all the little boys and ghouls. You can also split the parties and have the kids in one room (the basement works great) and the adults in another. No matter what your guests like, these tips are great for adults, kids, anyone or anything that might be coming to your party!

• Scary Punch: If the kids are old enough to serve themselves, the classic foaming punch is a great treat. All you need is a 2-liter bottle of lemon-lime soda, a plastic container of sherbet (orange or rainbow) and some red food coloring for the spooky effect. Top it off with floating gummy worms and you have a gross, yummy drink!
• Ghoul Punch: This punch is fun and creepy because it looks black but packs a powerfully sweet punch. Pick up 2-liter bottles of grape soda, orange soda and ginger ale. Mix the soda with a can of orange juice concentrate and a packet of unsweetened grape-drink mix. Throw it all together and add some black sprinkles on top to heighten the darkness. If your punch still isn’t sinister enough, add equal parts of yellow, blue and red food coloring to deepen the black. It’s surprisingly sweet, so it may be better suited to kids than adults. Of course, you could also add "spirits" to really get the adults in the Halloween mood.

• Candy Corn Chips: Want to have real snacks that look just like candy corn? Take regular, flat, triangle tortilla chips, white cheese and yellow cheese (you can even use single slices) and arrange in a candy corn pattern. Melt the cheese on the chip in the microwave or oven and you have a super simple snack that looks like tasty candy corn.
• Make Your Dips a Doozey: A little food coloring goes a long way with your chip dips. Green and red can be gross colors that add some disgusting fun to your tasty snacks. If you make guacamole, shape the tomatoes instead of simply dicing them. It will still taste yummy even if people cringe when you tell them the tomatoes are actually witch's tongue bits.
• Crescent Rolls: Crescent rolls are a really easy snack, and they add plenty of Halloween flavor. Of course, crescent rolls resemble the shape of the crescent moon. They're already spooky! It might be the easiest Halloween party snack ever!

Lookie Cookies: Start with sugar cookies, vanilla frosting and a tube of red-gel frosting in a small-tipped tube. Grab a couple rolls of round candies with a hole in the middle (for example, Lifesavers) and some small, black (or colored) jelly beans.

• Coat all your sugar cookies with vanilla frosting.

• Crunchy Ghosts: For a super-simple, sweet treat both kids and adults love, grab bags of mini-marshmallows, popcorn and chocolate chips as well as a stick of butter. Microwave about 40 mini-marshmallows and 2 tablespoons of butter in a bowl, until completely melted. Pour your buttery, marshmallow mix over the popped popcorn and toss well so all the popcorn is evenly coated and sticky. Then using hands that have been well-greased with remaining butter, form the popcorn into oval shapes with flat bottoms and pop two chocolate chips on your "ghost" for eyes.

No matter what you serve at your party, don’t forget to have fun! Sometimes as the host you get so busy cleaning up and making sure everyone else is having a good time, the night flies by without you having a chance to enjoy yourself. Don’t let this happen — a host's job is to have fun as well as take care of the guests.