The holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! They come every year, but this year we are all going to have to modify the way we celebrate in order to stay healthy and keep others healthy. But how do you celebrate a holiday like Halloween, which traditionally involves coming into contact with many people, when you are still practicing social distancing? “Many traditional Halloween activities can be high-risk for spreading viruses. There are several safer, alternative ways to participate in Halloween,” advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Yay for safer ways to celebrate! And don’t worry if you’re drawing a blank on what those safer ways to celebrate Halloween might look like, because we’ve got some great ideas to share with you. Oh, and if your kids are big Halloween fans, let them be a part of the planning. It will help get them excited about the holiday and look forward to celebrating in new ways instead of being bummed that they can’t celebrate the way they have in the past. Now start scrolling, and get ready to have fun being tricky with treats this Halloween.
Have a costumed Halloween dinner.
Celebrating the holiday at home with the people who are in your quaran-team bubble is one of your safest bets. To make the day special, you could have everyone dress in costumes for dinner. You could also invite a few skeletons to sit at the table with you if you are missing being able to have guests over.
As for dinner itself, go with a deliciously creepy menu.
Think of all the creepy things you could serve for dinner! Noodles can look a lot like brains if you get creative with them on the plate. Olives can turn into creatures. Meatballs can be turned into spiders. Your kids will love their creepy meal and remember it for years to come.
Go batty with the decorating.
You don't literally have to use bat decorations, but just go all out. Even if you've never really decorated for Halloween before, this would be a great year to start. Get creative and decorate the inside of your home with items that make your whole family feel like Halloween is all around them.
Create a backyard graveyard.
If you have a backyard, use props and decorations to turn it into a graveyard. Then on Halloween, you can hide candy in different places in the graveyard so the kids can trick-or-treat without having to leave the safety of your own plot, so to speak. Bwahahaha.
Carve pumpkins together.
One thing that doesn't have to change this year is the carving of pumpkins. Have a pumpkin-carving party with your household, and go ahead and carve more pumpkins than you normally would. Yes, have everyone carve a few pumpkins or decorate them in creative ways. We'll tell you why in a second.
Boo your family, friends, and neighbors.
OK, so now that you have a bunch of extra decorated pumpkins, you can use them to boo your friends, family, and neighbors. That means that you head over to their home, place one of the pumpkins you carved and decorated at their front door with some additional treats, then ring the doorbell and run so as to stay socially distanced.
Organize a porch-decorating contest with neighbors.
If you live in a neighborhood where everyone knowns everyone, why not organize a porch-decorating contest? It will make your neighborhood look festive, and you can all walk through the neighborhood wearing masks and keeping at least 6 feet apart to admire each other's handiwork. You could even award prizes.
Get to baking!
Have a family baking party. Everyone can contribute to making, baking, decorating, and eating the cookies. Plus your home will smell incredible, and when it's time to eat the cookies, you can all sit around with hot chocolate or cafecito and tell ghost stories.
Have a Halloween movie night.
Plan a Halloween-themed movie night with all kinds of snacks. Start off with family-friendly Halloween movie favorites. When the kids go off to bed, the adults can continue the movie marathon with truly scary movies. Just remember not to scream, because then you'll wake and scare the kids.
Set up a Halloween egg hunt.
Why should egg hunts only be for Easter? You can take old Easter eggs and decorate them to be more Halloween-y, or you can buy candy containers that are already meant to be used for Halloween and set up a Halloween egg hunt indoors or outdoors for your kids. They'll love it, and you'll have fun watching them.
Celebrate with a Halloween piñata.
Listen—kids love Halloween for a lot of reasons, but mostly because they associate it with getting candy. Let them have the joy of getting Halloween candy via a Halloween-themed piñata. They will have both the thrill of hitting a piñata and the joy of getting Halloween candy without having to go trick-or-treating.
Head to a drive-in.
Drive-in movie theaters are making a comeback across the nation. Check to see if there are any in your area, and if there are, buy tickets ahead of time for Halloween, because they will go fast. You can go to the movies dressed in costumes, snack in the car while you watch, and still be a safe distance away from other people in their cars. Remember that you still need to bring face masks in case anyone needs to get out of the car to go potty.
Have a virtual Halloween costume contest.
Dressing up for Halloween is fun because you get to see other people's costumes and they get to see yours. This year, you can set up a virtual Halloween costume contest with family or friends and give out prizes for best costumes. Everyone gets dressed up and shows off their costumes via the magic of the internet.
Look for a haunted road to drive through.
You know how during Christmas certain neighborhoods get all decked out and create Candy Cane Lanes that you can drive through to enjoy their decorations? Well, some folks are doing that for Halloween. Search online to see if there are any "haunted roads" you can drive through this year.
Find a creative and contactless way to distribute candy.
If you are determined to hand out candy this year, you must find a way to do it so that it is safe and contactless. Perhaps you will be inspired by the 6-foot candy shoot that Andrew Beattie came up with so that he can be at least 6 feet away and masked while distributing candy to any masked trick-or-treaters.
However you choose to celebrate Halloween, have fun, be safe, and may you have many treats come your way! Happy Halloween to you and yours!
