A Night at the Movies
Movie Party Themes

by Peggy Green
(Fort Worth, Texas)

Every year we host the family reunion. Each year we have a different theme. This year we did "a night at the movies".

We had purchased movie party supplies. But the ones we made were my favorites.

For the table decorations, we made "Oscar-type trophies". I saved cans from canned food, removed the labels, painted the cans black, got jpg photos of movie posters off the internet, printed a label with the movie posters and topped the can with a small trophy (party supply).

They were really cute. I did some specifically for the kids, with Disney movies and topped them with Disney characters purchased at the Disney Store outlet. We used these as prizes later in the evening at our "Stars" dance.

We painted photo props on plywood, which made great photo ops. We had a pirate, Cinderella and an old car for picture moments. We also invited everyone to come to the dance as their favorite "star". We had some great "celebrities" show up.

During the dance, we had different games throughout the evening, to give us more mature ones a rest. We had "Name that Tune", did the Hokey Pokey, had a hula hoop contest for different age groups.

We also let the kids know ahead of time that there was going to be a team dance contest. The kids divided off into age groups and picked their songs, did their own choreographing and performed for us at the dance.

It was great as it put kids together that only see each other once a year and formed great camaraderie between them. Every child there got a "trophy". We had to get creative with the "categories" for the trophies, i.e. "most unique rhythm".

Outside the building we had "red carpet" rolled out, purchased at party supply, covered with red canopies in case of rain.

We made a banner out of a piece of plastic tarp, with rivets to hang it. Each year we have the party theme printed on 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper that we tape to the tarp banner. We hang that over the door. Everyone had a great time.