How to Host a Murder Mystery Party

Today's Friday Five is all about Holiday Traditions and one of the things we do every year around the holidays is host a Murder Mystery party ( this is something separate from the Murder Mystery weekends that we attend).  Lots of people do the typical Christmas party, so this kind of mixes things up a bit and we love a good themed party!


1.To make things simple, we purchase one of those boxed party kits. We have used several brands but our favorite is by BePuzzled Games.


2. This kits will give you everything you need to host a successful party. It will give you invitations to send out, a menu for meal planning, a script booklet for each suspect, an overall party guide, and an optional CD.

3. Our favorite part of the murder mystery is the dressing up!  On each invitation there is a list of characters. Each guest is assigned to portray a certain character and they are given background info on that character and costume suggestions. This is so fun and our guests really take the dressing up seriously. Over the years we've had a skier ( bringing real skis with him), a doctor, a show girl, a surfer, a redneck bride and an Elvis, just to name a few.

4. It's always fun to make the food for the party too. Each party has it's own theme and the menu that is suggested in the party planning kit reflects that theme. I don't remember for certain all of the themes we have done, but here are a few:  A ski lodge, A Vineyard, A Wedding, Mardi Gras, a Hawaiian Luau and an Italian Theme.

5. The party planning guide will also guide you on how to decorate and what props you should have. Even though we host this party during Christmas, the only real Christmassy theme we ever had was the one set at the ski lodge. That was fun because I could use all my snowmen and Christmas tree decorations I already had. One of the most fun themes we had was probably the Hawaiian Luau. It was so fun to decorate my house and wear fun sun dresses even though there was snow on the ground!

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of our past Murder Mystery parties. I believe they all got lost when Best Buy wiped out my computer!

Do you host an annual party of some sort?

                                        

24 comments:

  1. We have never attended a murder mystery party but they sound like tons of fun. We have the usual sort of traditions for Christmas but they always make us happy every year!

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  2. I have always wanted to go to a murder mystery party and that is so my kind of thing. I never thought to host one myself though. Something for the new year!

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  3. i LOVE murder mystery parties. what a fun and unique tradition!

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  4. How fun! I've never attended a pray like this. The kits sound great since they have everything you need in there. I might have to give this a try.

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  5. Very cool. Sounds like it could be a fun thing to do. I love making puzzles to solve.

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  6. I've heard of these before, but I've never attended one or hosted one; it sounds like a TON of fun!! Such a great idea to get together with people around the holidays, too. Thanks for sharing this! Hope you have a great weekend and a wonderful holiday week!

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  7. I LOVE these - even though I've never been to one. I grew up loving Agatha Christie and she had a plotline where a murder mystery went wrong and there was an actual one. And another plotline where it was supposed to go wrong, but the detective figured it out beforehand and he inserted a little fake murder of his own.

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  8. I love murder mysteries! I've hosted 8 of them and attended two others. My favorite company is Night of Mystery - you can download and print everything, and it's much more improv based than just reading from a booklet, which is great for me and my theater friends ;)

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  9. Thanks for the tips! My family tried this once, and we used a boxed party but I forget which one it is. The challenge was that half the people just weren't into it and half-heartedly played...so that was the last time we tried it. I guess I need to find people who actually want to do it!

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  10. I soooo want to do this! I love murder mysteries. Unfortunately, I'm not much of an entertainer. I need to work on that.

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  11. I've been to one murder mystery party, but I was super young. I would love to try another one with my friends. I think we would all get into it.

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  12. Interesting tradition! I think I went to one of those parties long ago....

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  13. I love these! We participated in one long ago as a Sunday school get-together. Super fun tradition!
    Thanks for stopping by my blog! ((hugz))

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  14. We had a company do this for us a few years back. I really want to do it again!

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  15. I love murder mystery parties, but have never hosted one. I really should!

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  16. This would be so much fun, I love this idea!
    I have never hosted or even been to one, but if invited I would totally love playing the part:) What a fun tradition!!!!

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  17. Looks like a fun time. Who doesn't enjoy a mystery?

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  18. That is such a cool tradition, and I bet everyone loves coming to a different type of Christmas party each year! I did a murder mystery dinner at church one time, but didn't get to play a character. Sounds like a fun idea to try sometime!

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  19. What fun! I've never been to one of these, but perhaps I'll see if my teens would be into this. Being able to order a kit seems like an easy way to pull it together. Where did you order the kits from and what was the cost?

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  20. Oh my gosh I want to do this!! What a great idea!! We do play a few games on Christmas but this seems like a blast. I didn't even know you could buy these kits. Have a great time! Happy Holidays!

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  21. Wow this is brilliant! Very unique, I have never been to a murder mystery dinner party, I'm sure all your guests love the change of pace with your out of the ordinary Christmas Party.

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  22. I love playing Clue so it would be awesome to make a whole party out of it!

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