Dark Shadows Date Night

Halloween was a great night this year.  We spent an hour or so on the front porch with the pups handing out candy to all the super cute trick-or-treaters, then headed down to the basement for a Dark Shadows {Stay-at-Home} Date Night!

The girls got all dressed up for a fun night of handing out free kisses to all the kids (and receiving lots of pets too!)

Last year Harley was too small to understand what was going on, and Willow was so wild that Hubs had to walk her around the neighborhood to get her to calm down.  This year we tried a new tactic.  We borrowed a large piece of plexi-glass and barricaded the pups on the porch.  They LOVED this because they got to see all the kiddos and everyone gave them attention….they are BIG attention hogs!

When we were ready to head in, I had a little surprise date waiting for the Hubs.  Yes, this theme fit perfectly with Halloween night, but you could re-create this date any time you might want to watch Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp!

So let me tell you a little about the movie and how I planned out the date night.

“Dark Shadows is a 2012 American horror comedy film, based on the gothic soap opera of the same name that was produced for television between 1966 and 1971. The film is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, a 200-year-old vampire who has been imprisoned in a coffin. Collins is eventually unearthed and makes his way back to his mansion, now inhabited by his dysfunctional descendants. Collins also discovers that his jealous ex-lover, Angelique Bouchard, played by Eva Green, has taken over the town's fishing business that was once run by the Collins family (Bouchard is a witch who was responsible for transforming Collins into a vampire). Michelle Pfeiffer also stars as Collins' cousin, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the reclusive matriarch of the Collins family.^{”  {source}}

 

I used some of the characters and settings in the story to set up a fun and creative date night for the Hubs and I . (I rented the movie for only $1 at Redbox!)

So to go along with our theme of a Dark Shadows Movie Night, I started by making these delicious Vampire Bite Cookies! (Because Johnny Depp plays a Vampire, of course!)

They were yummy shortbread cookies, stuffed with raspberry jam filling.  You can go here to BakingBites.com to grab the recipe! (They really were yummy – Hubs ate like 5 in less than 5 minutes)

We washed down our Vampire Bite Cookies with Blue Poweraide.  Why?  Because the local pub in the town of Collinsworth (in the movie) is where all the town’s problems are solved, and it is called “The Blue Whale”

After we enjoyed a little snack, we spent some time making a little Dark Shadows Mansion of our own!

We had such a fun time making our Dark Shadows House while we watched the movie.  It was a great finish to a perfect Halloween night!