If you ask me, there’s nothing more fun than a theme party, especially if costumes are involved.

There really are no downsides to dressing as the Cookie Monster for Halloween. (Denver Post file)

I enjoy finding decorations, cooking themed food, pouring creative cocktails, making playlists and sending friends home with little trinkets. Plus, the theme is an immediate ice-breaker for guests, who may be meeting each other for the first time or who just want to whisper about how quirky my household is (which is fine) as they study the decor.

My theme parties over the years have included the moon landing, Woodstock, Halloween monsters, a come-as-your-high-school-self birthday, a Scholastic book fair for adults and a Christmas cookie party.

Lisa Geiser, owner of Eclectic Elegance Events in Denver, agrees that theme parties do not have to be expensive or super fancy.

“I tell people don’t worry about trends,” Geisler said. “Just get creative and just do you, not caring what people think.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Let’s jump into some tips on how to organize your theme party.

Step 1: Pick your theme

This is the most important thing, so let’s get it right.

Search inside yourself and decide what you like. This is your party, after all, and you should tailor it to your interests. Do that, and the authenticity will shine through. Your guests will love it.

Geisler recommends watching movies or searching the internet for videos and pictures from international holiday celebrations to find ideas.

“Google is your best friend to kind of see what people are doing,” Geisler said.

I love vintage stuff and childhood nostalgia. A quick and easy theme is to pick your birth year and start from there. What movies and TV shows were popular? What music were people listening to? What were they eating?

I once hosted a 1969-themed birthday and asked people to roll with it. My parents came as their younger selves — my mom wore a long blonde wig and shoved a pillow under her shirt to appear pregnant and my dad wore a white T-shirt and Madras plaid shorts like a pair he was photographed wearing while holding me as an infant. He handed out pink bubblegum cigars to the guests.

My husband bought a Cookie Monster costume because that is the year the lovable Cookie arrived on Sesame Street. I dressed as Janis Joplin.

(In the spring, I hosted a Scholastic Book Fair for adults for my best friend’s birthday since we both associate those days at school with joy. As my friend explains, it’s fun to think of things you enjoyed as a child and then spend your “grownup money” on them. We thrifted books for our guests to shop, let them decorate tote bags, gave away bookmarks and cute pens and pencils, decorated with old vintage paperbacks and held a spelling bee. People are still talking about the party six months later.)

For Halloween, I love the classic monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman. It’s easy to build a party from there.

At Christmas, I go with vintage holiday decor. That could be paired with a jazz-themed party or a 1950s cocktail night.

Step 2: Set your budget

The economy is tough, and no one should go broke over a party. Make your only regret a little bit of a hangover, not a zero balance in your checking account.

Decide what the top three to five priorities will be at your party. Killer cocktails? Beautiful floral arrangements? A fancy cake? Goodie bags?

Planning is key here. If you pick your theme early, then you have time to shop at thrift stores, flea markets and sale racks at Target, Walmart and Michael’s. Save money on decorations, costumes or snacks and shift that spending to the things you value most at a party, whether that’s an expensive bottle of bourbon or a new outfit.

Step 3: Send the invitations

The holiday calendars fill up fast. So avoid those “regrets” responses by locking in the date early.

Steal a tactic from wedding planners and send save-the-date invitations.

Step 4: Plan the menu

There is no shame in making box brownies for a party. People love ’em. (Lynda Balslev, Media News Group)

I’m Southern, and the biggest party foul for me would be running out of food. My guests simply cannot go hungry, and it’s even better if I can pack to-go boxes for them when they leave

I’ve learned that RSVPs can be unreliable, so I think of dishes that can stretch on a budget. For example, for a brunch I might make a grits casserole but I will have more on hand that I can whip up on the fly. Chips and salsa never fail. Pans of Duncan Hines brownies always please the crowd and are quick and inexpensive. And for a cute, sweet cheat, buy a box of Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls, cut them into pieces and artfully arrange the rounds on a holiday platter.

Step 5: Decorate early

I start decorating the weekend before the party. I prefer to save my energy for the actual party. Plus, if the decorations are cool, it’s fun to have a festive house for longer than a weekend.

Put up decorations first in the least-used parts of the house. The kitchen and dining area would be last because you know you’re going to make a mess in that room almost every day. But the garland on the mantle or lights on the front porch can go up early.

Step 6: Leave time for yourself

Make sure you give yourself time to look cute when guests arrive. It’s stressful to just be getting out of the shower 30 minutes before the first people arrive.

Step 7: Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If someone texts the day of the party and asks if you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask for that extra bag of ice or bottle of wine.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is taking a pause on Thursday as U.S. stocks and even the price of gold make only modest moves near their record highs.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, coming off its latest all-time high and its eighth gain in the last nine days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 126 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

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Gold also crept back from its latest record following a stellar rally this year, while Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. They’re taking a moment following big runs driven in large part by expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to support the economy.

Delta Air Lines flew 6.5% higher after reporting a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected. The Atlanta-based carrier also gave a forecast for profit over the full year that topped analysts’ estimates.

Delta President Glen Hauenstein said it’s seen a broad-based acceleration in sales trends over the last six weeks, including for business travel domestically. That helped lift stocks of other airlines. United Airlines climbed 4%, American Airlines rose 2.2% and Southwest Airlines gained 1.8%.

Such reports from companies are taking on more significance, offering windows into the strength of the economy. That’s because the U.S. government’s shutdown is delaying reports that would clearly show how the overall economy is doing. This is the second week where the U.S. government has not published its update on unemployment claims, for example, a report that usually guides Wall Street’s trading each Thursday.

Companies will also need to deliver big profit growth to justify the tremendous gains their stock prices have made since a low in April. The S&P 500 has soared roughly 35%, which has left it looking more expensive than usual, relative to corporate profits. Concerns are particularly high about the frenzy lifting stocks related to artificial-intelligence technology.

PepsiCo added 0.3% after it delivered a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It said momentum improved for its drinks business in North America.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Tesla, which fell 1.8%. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary evaluation of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system due to safety concerns.

Akero Therapeutics leaped 16.6% after Novo Nordisk, the Danish maker of weight-loss drug Wegovy, said it would buy the South San Francisco-based drug developer. The price tag could reach $5.2 billion if Akero’s lead product candidate wins federal regulatory approval.

MP Materials, a company that mines and processes rare earths in California, climbed 5.1% after China announced curbs on its exports of the materials, which are critical for the making of everything from consumer electronics to jet engines.

Costco Wholesale added 2.4% after the retailer said its revenue rose 8% in October from a year earlier.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Stocks in Shanghai leaped 1.3% after trading resumed following a holiday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.8% for another one of the world’s bigger moves. Technology giant SoftBank Group surged 11.4% after it announced a $5.4 billion deal to acquire the robotics unit of Swiss engineering firm ABB.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.14% from 4.13% late Wednesday.

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

Pumpkin spice latte season began at a well-known coffee chain in late August. Thanks to the phenomenon known as pumpkin creep — the earlier and earlier arrival of pumpkin-flavored beverages each year — pumpkin beer season starts earlier now too. But that’s not a bad thing: beers made with pumpkin, and more often pumpkin spice, are already on store shelves and will be hanging around through Thanksgiving or until they run out.

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Like the saying, “everything old is new again,” pumpkin beer has a much longer history than many people realize. Modern versions of pumpkin beer were first brewed in the mid-1980s, but the style goes back to colonial America, out of necessity. When early colonists first arrived in New England, they discovered that barley didn’t grow very well, and they looked around for an alternative fermentable substitute. Some of the crops that Native Americans taught the settlers to grow were corn and pumpkins, which were grown together to more efficiently use farm space. Since beer was safer to drink than water, they couldn’t be too picky, so they started making beer with pumpkins, as well as other locally grown ingredients, like artichokes, parsnips, persimmons, spruce tips and molasses. How different those beers must have tasted compared to our modern lagers.

But as America expanded and other parts of the nation grew barley, the practice died out, especially once the Industrial Revolution made brewing on a large scale more efficient. It wasn’t until the rise of craft beers that pumpkin beers returned, although these were traditionally brewed with barley and hops, with pumpkin flavor added. The first modern version was brewed in the Bay Area, at one of America’s earliest brewpubs, Buffalo Bill’s, founded in Hayward by Bill Owens in 1983. It closed for a time during COVID, but was fortunately reopened recently by new owners who want to keep its legacy alive. Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale was first brewed around 1986. It’s still one of the bestselling pumpkin beers to this day, although it’s become so popular that they now contract the beer-making out to a production brewery to keep up with demand.

Longtime Hayward brewpub Buffalo Bill’s Cerveceria has been brought back after closing in 2022. Shown here are district manager Luis Angel Herrera and owner Alejandro Gamarra. (Courtesy Jay R. Brooks)

While colonial pumpkin beers used actual pumpkins, many modern ones do not, or at least don’t replace the barley with pumpkin. Many add pumpkins into the brewing process in one form or another, whether fresh cut-up pumpkins, pumpkin puree or some other concentrated form. In addition, many modern pumpkin beers also add various spices such as allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger or nutmeg, usually late in the boil to give the beer its seasonal aromatics, making it more like pumpkin pie beer. It’s the pumpkin spices that give many modern pumpkin beers their unique character, and most breweries use their own unique blends to complement the pumpkin flavor.

Other good Bay Area pumpkin beers include Anderson Valley’s Fall Hornin’ Pumpkin Ale and 21st Amendment’s Pumpkin Haze IPA and Almanac’s Dark Pumpkin Sour. From outside our area, try Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale, New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, and Rogue Ales and Spirits’ Pumpkin Patch Ale. Also worthwhile is Kern River’s Pumpkin Ale, Southern Tier’s Pumking, or either Shipyard’s Smashed Pumpkin Ale or Pumpkin Head. And Seattle’s Elysian Brewing has several varieties of pumpkin beers, including a variety pack in bottles or cans. The variety packs include their Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Night Owl Pumpkin Ale, and Punkuccino Coffee Pumpkin Ale. But check your local specialty beer store to see what they’re stocking this pumpkin beer season. Many brewpubs and breweries will also make a seasonal pumpkin ale for draft only, so this is also a good time to stop by your local brewery to see if it has any pumpkin beers on tap.

Half Moon Bay’s Art & Pumpkin Festival

If you want to try a unique pumpkin beer, head to Half Moon Bay, Calif. From Oct. 18-19, the town will host its 53rd annual Art & Pumpkin Festival. The festival will include a special beer from Half Moon Bay Brewing’s award-winning brewer, James Costa. His Pumpkin Harvest Ale is a stronger version of their Amber Ale — at 6.8% ABV — with slightly reduced hops and added pumpkin and spices. This year’s edition is slightly different from the previous year. If you can’t make the fest, Half Moon Bay Brewery already has the pumpkin beer on tap.

Contact Jay R. Brooks at BrooksOnBeer@gmail.com.

For more food and drink coverage follow The Mercury News on Flipboard.

By Michelle Andrews, KFF Health News

Quinn Cochran-Zipp went to the emergency room three times with severe abdominal pain before doctors figured out she had early-stage cancer in the germ cells of her right ovary. After emergency surgery four years ago, the Greeley, Colorado, lab technician is cancer-free.

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The two hospitals that treated Cochran-Zipp at the time determined that she qualified for 100% financial assistance, since her income as a college student was extremely low. Not having to worry about the roughly $100,000 in bills she racked up for her care was an enormous relief, she said.

Then she started receiving unexpected bills from doctors who worked at the hospitals but, because they weren’t on staff there, didn’t have to abide by the facilities’ financial assistance policies.

Those bills, which came from specialists in emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and radiology who treated her, totaled more than $5,000. Although it was a fraction of the total cost of her care, to Cochran-Zipp it was an enormous amount. She went on payment plans and used scholarship and COVID stimulus money to help cover the bills.

Cochran-Zipp, now 25 and working at a community health center, is applying to medical schools and hopes to enroll next fall. Her experience as a patient has shaped how she thinks about becoming a doctor.

“I don’t think that I could be a provider that, in good conscience, charges patients money in addition to the hospital fees,” she said.

Hospital financial assistance programs are commonplace, and many patients rely on them. Most offer varying amounts of financial help to uninsured and lower-income people. Eligibility is typically based on a sliding income scale. Some hospitals apply other tests, such as residency.

But even if people qualify for assistance, they may not get discounts. That’s because many physicians working at but not for a hospital aren’t bound by its financial assistance policies. Hospitals themselves might limit the types of services eligible for discounted or “charity care,” as it’s sometimes called.

“It’s a hole in the system,” said Caitlin Donovan, a senior director at the Patient Advocate Foundation, a nonprofit that helps patients with serious illnesses cover their medical bills. Case managers who work with patients report that they’ve seen these problems repeatedly, Donovan said.

In the coming years, more patients will encounter difficulties as demand for financial assistance grows. More than 14 million people are projected to lose health insurance over the next decade, primarily because of changes to the federal Medicaid program and state insurance marketplaces in recently passed tax and spending legislation championed by the Trump administration. Some of these people will likely qualify for discounted care.

Nonprofit hospitals do not pay taxes on the money they make, but to maintain that tax-exempt status, they are required to have policies to help patients pay for emergency and other medically necessary care. For-profit hospitals are not required to offer financial assistance to needy patients, but many do.

However, physicians and other providers who work in a hospital as independent contractors rather than as employees are often not subject to a hospital’s financial assistance policy. According to an analysis by the Lown Institute, a health care think tank, physician services in the emergency, radiology, anesthesia, and pathology specialties are commonly excluded from hospital charity care.

For example, at Hartford HealthCare, a large nonprofit health system serving Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, services performed by physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants employed by HHC, including emergency department physicians at four of its hospitals, are covered by its financial assistance policy. But treatment by emergency physicians at three HHC hospitals is not covered by the financial assistance policy, since they are not employees. Care by doctors working in radiology, pathology, and anesthesia isn’t covered by the financial assistance policy at any HHC facility.

Hartford HealthCare declined to comment on the record for this article.

Health system researchers have identified another potential barrier to patients’ receiving help from hospital financial assistance policies. IRS rules require that nonprofit hospitals include emergency and medically necessary care in their charity care policies, but they give hospitals substantial leeway to define what “medically necessary” care means.

Historically, excluded care has been limited to services that insurance doesn’t typically cover, like cosmetic surgery or experimental treatment. But in recent years, hospitals appear to be defining medically necessary care more narrowly, eliminating financial assistance for care that is needed but not urgently required. Care that might fall into this category could be a kidney stone removal, a cancer biopsy, or a cardiac valve replacement, according to a study published this year in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Although the study of 209 nonprofit hospitals with more than 200 beds found only isolated examples of hospitals — about 6% of them — that substantially excluded medically necessary care, researchers are concerned that it could be the leading edge of a larger trend, said Mark Hall, a professor of law and public health at Wake Forest University, who co-authored the study.

“There’s not really much in the way of regulatory guidance in what should be in or out” of a financial assistance policy, said Christopher Goodman, a clinical assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, who has published several studies examining hospital financial assistance policies.

The American Hospital Association declined to comment for this article. American Medical Association spokesperson Robert Mills said that the AMA doesn’t have a position on whether all contracted physicians should be required to participate in hospital financial assistance policies.

For-profit hospitals have more latitude to fashion their financial assistance policies as they wish.

At HCA Healthcare, one of the country’s largest for-profit health care systems, with nearly 200 hospitals in 20 states and the United Kingdom, discounted or free care is available only for “emergent or non-elective services.”

“Facility charity policies and uninsured discounts are typically specific to emergency services” at HCA Healthcare, said Harlow Sumerford, an HCA Healthcare spokesperson. “Any third-party providers are independent and would have their own financial policies.”

In recent years, several states have passed medical debt protection laws. A few apply to some doctors and other health care providers who practice at health care facilities and bill patients separately for their care.

Colorado’s is the most expansive. Under its Hospital Discounted Care law that took effect in September 2022, covered hospitals have to screen all uninsured people and others who request it for eligibility for Medicaid and other health programs, and provide discounted care to people whose income is up to 250% of the federal poverty level (about $80,000 for a family of four). There are limits on how much qualifying patients can be billed each month and, after three years, their debt is retired.

Under the Colorado law, licensed health care professionals who work at a covered hospital can charge qualified patients no more than the rates set by the state.

“This rule has been a game changer for folks in Colorado,” said Melissa Duncan, consumer assistance program manager at the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, which helps patients access health care and cover their bills.

Unfortunately, the law didn’t pass in time to help Cochran-Zipp.

As hospitals grapple with the changes expected under the federal health care legislation passed this summer, discounted care programs may make a tempting target, say some health care financing experts. Facing higher rates of uncompensated care and trouble collecting payments from patients, facilities may reduce the financial assistance that they offer.

Hospitals may say “we are going to do all we can to protect our spending,” said Ge Bai, a professor of accounting and health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. “In that environment, charity care will be a burden.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.