SURPISE MYSTERY PARTY 13 YEARS OLD: For my 13th birthday, I made up my own mystery party, THE CASE OF THE MISSING BUTLER. I had had a CLUE party for my 12th birthday, and I loved it, I just didn't want to do it again.  So my Mom and I made up our own mystery.  We didn't want the guests to know exactly that it was a mystery, though.  INVITATIONS:  We made a formal letter on pretty stationary in a nice font. We told each guest to come dressed in their best 'dress-up' (play, not real) clothes in a certain color. This is what we put....DEAR GUEST, NAME WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO A FORMAL DINNER BIRTHDAY PARTY.  PLEASE WEAR YOUR FANCIEST PLAY DRESS UP CLOTHES IN COLOR.  DINNER WILL BE SERVED AT ADDRESS ON DATE AT TIME. PICK UP IS THE NEXT DAY AT TIME.  TO MAKE YOUR FINAL RESERVATION, CALL PHONE NUMBER BY DATE.  Each person got a different color.  Then, we mailed them! The guests think that it's just a dinner party, but it will be much more than that.  PREPARATIONS/DECORATIONS/FOOD:  This party requires a lot of planning.  We had my dad dress up as a butler and my mom as a maid.  We also made a tape recording of a man screaming.  We also had to make up clues to tell the kids where to go next, or what to do next. We also had to make up character packets. This will all be explained later.  For decorations, we put blue, purple, and pink balloons and streamers in the party room, the room where we wouldn't need to go in.  We made a buffet table with a blue, purple, and pink tablecloth by buying one of each and having them overlap on the table.  We put regular sleepover food, cupcakes, chips, soda, etc.  We had white tableware on the buffet table. For dinner, we had pizza.  For dessert, we had a chocolate cake with white frosting question marks, so it was like a mystery cake.  For breakfast, we had waffles and donuts.  For the table where we were eating dinner, we covered it with a nice dark green tablecloth and served the food on light green plates with light green tableware. THE PARTY: When the guests arrived, the maid (my mom) took their coats and hung them up, while the butler (my dad) showed them to the dinner table.  We just talked until the pizza came, and when it did, the maid and butler served drinks and the pizza. After that, we were all chatting and beforehand, my mom and dad asked my brother to turn off the kitchen lights.  While we were chatting, the lights were turned off and the recorded scream was played.  The lights turned back on the the butler was not there anymore! He had disappeared, and where he was standing was a note.  Of course, the lights were off for a while so everything could be placed. When the lights turned back on, the maid gathered everyone's attention. She said she saw a note, and was reading it to us. The note read.....DEAR WHOEVER IT MAY CONCERN, I HAVE TAKEN YOUR BUTLER.  IT IS MY FORM OF REVENGE.  YOU TOOK SOMETHING I WANT, AND NOW I WANT IT BACK.  PLACED AROUND THE HOUSE ARE CLUES FOR YOU, LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS.  YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHY I KIDNAPPED YOUR BUTLER. FROM....and then it was blank. The maid told us that we all had to have secret identities, so we wouldn't get hurt ourselves. The maid handed out the character packets. In each packet was a long page of facts about the character.  It said things such as FULL NAME, BIRTHDATE, ALIBI, FAMILY, HOBBIES, etc.  It also said a little bit about the character's history. I had the paper with the big clue on it. It said my mother (not my maid/mother) had had 2 kids.  I was the youngest, and usually the oldest gets the family fortune.  But this time I got it.  My older sibling had run away, he was so upset. (That was the solution to the mystery. My older brother was mad that I got the family fortune, so he kidnapped my butler.  The alibis were made to make you think that someone there had kidnapped the butler. But it was really my brother).  We read our information aloud to everyone.  In the packet, each person got a list of who was on their team. There were teams of 2. The other side of the paper told them their first clue.  When they got with their groups, everybody went to their first clue.  Everybody had the same clues in the same order. The first clue was this...YOU PEOPLE ARE PROBABLY FREAKED OUT BY NOW. BUT DON'T WORRY, IT GETS EVEN WEIRDER. I LEFT YOUR FIRST CLUE SOMEWHERE BY THE DOOR.  WHICH ONE IS IT? This clue told them to go to a door. But since there are many doors in my house, it all depended on where you looked and when.  When you got to the correct door, there was another clue.  It said...GOOD JOB SO FAR.  BUT I'M NOT IMPRESSED YET.  HERE'S YOUR FIRST TASK. UNSCRAMBLE THESE LETTERS TO SEE WHERE YOUR NEXT CLUE IS. HE TIN RIGRORRFEOAT.  NEED A CLUE?  IT'S WHITE. This told you to go to the white refrigorator for the next clue.  The next clue said...WELL YOU MADE IT THIS FAR.  BUT HOW LONG WILL YOU LAST? THE NEXT CLUE IS UNDER A TRASH CAN. WHICH ONE? BUT BEFORE YOU DO, FIND ALL OF THE WORDS IN THIS WORD SEARCH. TO MAKE SURE YOU DID IT, WHEN YOU FOUND ALL OF THE WORDS, PUT IT IN THIS BASKET WITH YOUR NAMES ON IT. The words in the word seach included MYSTERY, BUTLER, MONEY, KIDNAPPING, etc.  When you did that and you found the write trash can, it had 2 pieces of paper. One was a journal entry. It said...DEAR JOURNAL, MY DUMB LITTLE SISTER GOT THE FAMILY FORTUNE. IT MAKES ME SO MAD...SO MAD...OH WELL.  I WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING STUPID...and it ended there. The other piece of paper said...I'LL GIVE YOU A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY NOW.  I AM A BROTHER. A BROTHER TO SOMEONE AT THIS DINNER PARTY. FOR YOUR NEXT CLUE, GO TO A BLUE PURSE IN THIS HOUSE.  Once you got to the blue purse, you got your next clue.  It said...HERE IS SOME MONEY. I NEED IT MORE THAN YOU.  THERE IS ONLY $5 DOLLARS HERE.  THERE SHOULD BE $10.  LOOK AROUND THE HOUSE FOR THE OTHER $5 AND THE CLUE. Once you located the rest of the money, you got another clue. This one said...YOU ARE CLOSE TO SOLVING THE MYSTERY, AREN'T YOU?  YOU SHOULD BE.  ONLY ONE MORE CLUE AFTER THIS. FIND THE CONFEDENTIAL PACKET SOMEWHERE IN THIS HOUSE. IT SAYS CONFEDENTIAL ON THE FRONT. IT HAS YOUR FINAL CLUE.  GOOD LUCK.  Once they found the envelope, they saw that it contained a letter that was addressed to the mother of me (the one that gave me the fortune). It said...DEAR MOTHER, YOU MUST FLEE THE COUNTRY. YOU ARE IN TOO MUCH DANGER.  YOU WILL BE EMBARRASSED AND HURT IF YOU FIND OUT WHAT I DID.  OH, AND DON'T WORRY. YOU KNOW THAT RETIREMENT FUND YOU SAVED FOR ME?  GIVE IT TO SISTER, LIKE ALWAYS. SIGNED, YOUR SON.  And then it had a clue...YOU PROBABLY KNOW THE SOLUTION BY NOW.  IF NOT, RETRACE YOUR STEPS AND THINKK THINGS OVER. IF YOU DO KNOW IT, LOCATE THE MAID IN THE HOUSE.  TELL HER THE SOLUTION.  IF YOU ARE RIGHT, YOU SHALL WIN, AND ALL WILL BE REVEALED.  By now, everyone should know that my brother did it because he was jealous that I got the family fortune.  The group who won got a book (1 for each person) from the American Girl Library called Mini Mysteries.  After a group guessed the correct solution, everyone was called back.  They were told that whichever group could find the butler would win a small prize. They could go in any room. The party room had had a DO NOT ENTER sign on it.  That was where the butler was hiding. Whichever group found the butler won (1 per person) 'money', which was a pack of chocolate coins. After the game, we had cake and opened presents. After that, we all went into the party room.  We played CLUE (the board game), had a scavenger hunt for detective things, like flashlights, cameras, etc. that became their goody bags, and watched the CLUE movie. We also did other sleepover games, like painting shirts and pillowcases, other board games, etc.  I HOPE MY IDEAS HELPED YOU. THIS PARTY WAS REALLY SPECIAL BECAUSE WE MADE IT OURSELVES.