This year has been difficult for many, even the young. Our children are stuck without the social interaction of their peers and are trapped inside like wild animals. With the holidays approaching, many of us are thinking about how to tackle the next 6 months with the best and most important holidays to a child coming quick.
My daughter’s favorite holiday is Halloween. The wife and I are questioning how are we, and everyone else, is going to celebrate. Halloween is a holiday that requires being around tons of people and everyone using the same touchpoint… The candy bowl.
If we can’t celebrate Halloween by going trick or treating it’s going to devastate my little girl.
She has only ever known grand candy collection.
Nothing like mine which was about 10 houses max in freezing weather. Back then I’d walk up to a house in a winter jacket, knock, be let in, take my jacket off so they could see my costume, take photos, get candy, and go. I’d actually get a better score if I stayed home and handed out candy to the few people that came and got the rest myself.
My kids’ Halloween haul on the other hand, is impressive. It’s an all-day event. Starting at 9 am the daycare would walk 2 office buildings and collect a Target sized shopping bag full of candy. They would have Halloween fun and games all day, and a feast for lunch.
That night would be the traditional trick or treating with us going house to house. For that location check out my post here THE BEST TRICK OR TREAT SPOT IN ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. Each kid walked away with 1-1.5 shopping bags of candy by end of day! The next day the kids sort and take photos of their score.
It’ll hurt me too, I love dressing up in theme with the kids and the look on my their faces as they see things for the first time. How they react to scary things, seeing the look on their faces when they get candy, and hearing them talked excitedly about what they got. Catching them eating candy when I wasn’t looking. They catching me eating their candy when they weren’t looking.
So what can we all do when this year when we won’t have the chance to celebrate one of the most fun holidays kids can have. One of those holidays kids have memories of their whole life and one that parents love to see their kids enjoy.
My wife and I thought long and hard and really want to share our thoughts on how to make this the best Halloween ever, even if you have to do it from home.
Halloween Egg Hunt
This was our first idea and possibly the cheapest. We know how much our kids love Easter egg hunts, so what if we do the same thing for Halloween?
You can find fillable eggs online of jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, monsters, and black eggs. Stuff them with candy or tricks. Give them Halloween bags, or jack-o-lantern buckets. Better yet have them decorate their own pillowcase, as a throwback to our childhood, and it’ll be something you can treasure and keep for years. Next, let the hunt begin.
Another thing you can do if you don’t want all the plastic eggs after is tissue paper ghosts like this person did on Today.com
Haunted House Candy Hunt
This is probably the most elaborate of them all. Gather all the decorations you can and go all out on the inside of the house. My plan is to hang black streamers, cobwebs (unless my wife vetos that as she’s terrified of spiders), black lights, ghosts, fun monsters, basically all the decorations I can find, and play Halloween music.
Hide candy, treats, and Halloween themed toys everywhere and let them hunt. This can be for any age, you just have to change how scary it is. For younger kids cute monsters and brighter Halloween colors.
If your kids are older you can have something jump out at them. Better yet you scare them for all the times they use to get an inch from you face in the middle of the night to wake you up or stand in a dark hallway and you only see their silhouette of what you imagine is Chucky coming to kill you.
You could make this as an elaborate backyard haunted corn maze with candy collection and if they make it all the way through they get a treat basket at the end. Ok, they can get the basket regardless.
Trick-or-Treat Pumpkins
You could do one of 2 things, real or fake pumpkins. If using real pumpkins, cut the top off them, hollow them, and put either a trick or treat inside. They have to choose one, take the top off, and reach into a pumpkin filled with goo, pasta, or whatever slimy gooey sludge to reveal what’s inside. You might want to put the contents into a plastic bag if want to avoid getting the treat messy.
If using fake pumpkin have them covered so they have to blindly put their hands in and hope for the best again filled with whatever goop you can find to freak them out.
Halloween Themed Piñata
I’m excited about this one. I’ve never done pinatas but making monster ones should be easier as they don’t have to be super realistic.
I’ve looked up how to do them and they don’t look that difficult. Just a balloon or cardboard depending upon the shape I want to go with, newspaper, paper mache mixture (easy to do, just mix equal parts water and flour), either paint colored paper or streamers (also known as crepe paper), glue sticks and a way to hang it. This can be a fun holiday craft to do with the kids. Have them make it and let dry for at least 24 hours, then color them however you choose.
A couple of things to keep in mind when making a pinata.
Coming from experience, give extra reinforcement at the top of the pinata where you are hanging it from as that is always the failing point on all store-bought ones. Nothing is more disappointing than a pinata that won’t stay hung when kids are beating it with a stick.
The paper mache paste is messy you might want to put down a drop cloth or a shower curtain to make the clean up a little easier.
I suggest giving them printouts of inspiration for fun monsters that they can mimic in color or shape. They each get one and you stuff it full of all sorts of treats. I recommend a combination of candy and non-candy related items like school supplies, stickers, bubbles, hand sanitizer, glow sticks,
Other Then Candy
So besides the candy what else can we do? Having a party with the wife and the kids where you all make Halloween inspired food and get dressed up is another fun way to celebrate.
Get the kids in on it too. Almost any age can help in some way. My son is 2 and when cooking I’ll let him pour ingredients in the bowl.
My daughter being 5 helps a lot more and also loves doing the dishes after. Why? I’m not sure but hey I don’t question a gifted horse.
What can you make to have Halloween feel more then a 10 minute day?
Seasonal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Fun for everyone and delicious. Making chocolate chip cookies with fall colored M&M’s or better yet Reece’s Pieces.
Sugar Cookies
These are the most common and easiest to make. Little ones will love cutting the shapes and have even more fun decorating. ghosts, witches, pumpkins, black cat faces, bats, or DÃa de Muertos masks are all fun ones to decorate.
Worm Food
Chocolate pudding, oreo crumbs, gummy worms, and marshmellow headstone makes for a tasty treat and easy for anyone to make together.
Cupcakes
Regular sized or mini doesn’t matter. These are fun to make and decorate with the kids. It only takes some cake mix and cake decorations and black frosting or you can get more elaborate with
Other traditional Halloween food things you can have for the party are bloody hotdog fingers (hotdogs and ketchup), eyeballs (peel grapes), Halloween shaped sandwiches, and candy apple making station.
Arts & Crafts
I have to have my holiday arts and crafts. I love having things that the kids have made. It is one of my favorite things to do with the kids.
Pillowcase Decorations
I love the idea of doing this as a throwback to my childhood all the while bringing it into the new generation and hopefully something they pass on.
Hot glue, fabric markers, and all sorts of stuff to glue to the pillowcase like felt, jewels, eyeballs, etc. they can make a Halloween “sign” look. One that says “Happy Halloween” and they make it look cool. Or they can make one look like a monster or other Halloween creature and on the back, they could put Happy Halloween. I always suggest anything they make to put the date, year, and age that they did it as a reminder of when it was done. It’s fun to line up similar things each year and see their progression and how they think.
Carve Jack-O-Lanterns
Speaks for itself. We do these every year and it’s always fun. I usually do the carving and the kids to the messy gutting of the pumpkins. I always keep the seeds to season and bake and eat.
Wooden Sign Painting
Another memory maker can be painting signs. Even just a simple board painted black with “Boo” on it can be fun for the kids. If you have some skills you can make the board an old school casket shape, tin with rounded edges, boxed, pumpkin-shaped, hanging, or free standing.
Some stuff you can write on it are:
- Happy Halloween
- Boo
- Trick-or-Treat
- Hocus Pocus
- Pumpkin Patch
- Toil & Trouble
- Jack-O-Lantern
- Haunted House
- Dead & Breakfast
- Home of Frankenstein & His Little Monsters
- Enter If You Dare
- Velcome To My Coffin
- For addional ideas check out Pintrest, Micheals, Hobby Lobby, or similar sites.
Felt Monsters
This is great for the younger kids. All it takes is some Halloween colored felt that you cut into shapes for the little one to glue together. For instance, a round green felt as the base and premake white eyeballs with black in the middle (for them to glue where ever) and add a mouth and you have a multi-eyed monster. Pre-making kits for them if you have multiple kids is a good idea to keep everything running smoothly.
We are probably going to do a combination of all of this to make sure our kids still have an epic Halloween even if they can’t go trick or treating. Remember just because Halloween won’t consist of trick or treating this year doesn’t mean it has to suck. This is your chance to make it the most epic & rememberable Halloween ever. The Halloween they’ll want every year and one they will tell their kids about. who knows, this might be the year of traditions starting for families.
Finally, make a calendar of all the things you want to do with the family. It’s common for us to plan grand ideas and only complete a few things because the time sneaks up on us and before we know it Halloween is here and gone.
That is how we ended up with totes full of untouched crafts. However, this year we started planning at the end of August so we can start the holiday fun in September.
Feel free to reach out if you need to bounce ideas off someone or are stuck on an idea. I’m a designer by trade and concepting, creating, and troubleshooting is how I’ve made my career.
I’d love to see how you made the best of this year’s Halloween feel free to share in the comments below.
