You might be celebrating Halloween by staying safely at home this year, or some activities might be cancelled due to COVID-19. But fear not, there are plenty of ways to still have fun!
Just keep these four things in mind:
- Is it safe to trick or treat with friends? You can reduce the COVID-19 risks of trick-or-treating by making sure your trick-or-treat group is small. Limiting it to 3 or 4 kids is a good idea.
- Wear a mask! Since Halloween is all about masks, that should be easy. If your costume doesn’t involve a mask, add one by decorating a cloth mask with sequins, glitter or tie-dye. Parents should wear face masks too.
- Don’t share props, toys or candy. Don’t share your swords, wands or tiaras with your friends. Hold on to your own candy bag.
- Bring hand sanitizer and practice not touching your face.
Here are some fun (and safe!) ideas for Halloween:
• Drive-by or social distanced trick-or-treating – Your adults can coordinate with the neighbors for drive-by fun. Kids put on their costumes and stand in the yard, and folks drive by and throw (gently) candy. This keeps people from getting too close while allowing them to see all the kids’ costumes. And kids still get the candy!
• Give someone a special “treat” surprise – Bring a smile to someone’s face by treating them with a random act of kindness. Drop a treat at your neighbor’s front door, ring the doorbell and run!
• Trunk or treat – Visit a TRUNK OR TREAT event at a local church or community center. Or ask your adult about setting up a neighborhood Trunk or Treat. Kids can walk the block and homeowners can set up trunk displays in the driveway, to passing out candy.
• Bike parade – Organize a Halloween bike parade with your friends, to show off your costumes.
• Drive-Thru Halloween – Look for drive thru, contact-free Halloween activities near you. Seek out “haunted roads” or “drive thru haunted houses.”
Staying inside can be spook-tacular fun too!
IF you don’t go door-to-door trick-or-treating, don’t worry there are still plenty of ways to get spooked, have fun and celebrate the last day of October:
• House decorating – Decorate your house or room by cutting out black cats and witch hats from construction paper. Or make some recycled paper pumpkins or put some ghost luminarias on the front porch, or in the window (see page 5).
• Have a Halloween movie night – (Don’t forget to mix candy corn with your popcorn). Here are some not-so-scary Halloween movies:
o It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
o Monsters Inc.
o Super Monsters Save Halloween
o Goosebumps
o Toy Story of Terror
o Room on the Broom
o Curious George: a Halloween Boo Fest
o Paranorman
o Hotel Translyvania
o The Nightmare before Christmas
o Frankenweenie
o Dear Dracula
o Coraline
o Monster House
o Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween
o Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
• Have a Monster Mash Dance Party – Put on your costume and dance! Here are some suggestions for a Halloween playlist:
o Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett
o Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr.
o Halloween Sharks by Pinkfong (Halloween version of Baby Shark)
o Theme from ‘The Munsters’
o Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley
o Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell
o ‘This is Halloween’ from ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’
o Monster Boogie by the Laure Berkner Band
o I Put a Spell on You performed by Bette Midler
o Theme from ‘The Addams Family’
o Five Little Pumpkins by the Kiboomers
• Zoom for Halloween
o Costume party – Your family and faraway relatives and friends can have a dress-up party via Zoom or other online social platform. To make it more fun, choose a theme for everyone’s costumes. Or, make a rule at no one can use a store bought costume, so they have to be creative with things they can find at home!
o Pumpkin carving/ painting contest
Decorate your pumpkins “together” and have a contest for the best one.
• Weird Science – Be your own mad scientist by mixing up a batch of Halloween slime. Or combine vinegar and baking soda inside a jack-o-lantern for some oozing fun!