According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it is not recommended that children and families participate in door-to-door trick-or-treating this year. Halloween may be a little different for our ghouls and goblins, but there are still lots of ways to have fun and get into the spirit of the season.
1. Drive-by Halloween parade
Invite your friends to bring their vehicles and drive by decorated neighborhoods! Bring your own candy and your kids can pick one whenever they see a bat or ghost.
2. Create a Quarantine-o-Ween scavenger hunt
Use the inside of your home or backyard and send your kids on a scavenger hunt to find candy or treats. Make it more challenging by creating clues.
3. Search for drive-thru Halloween activities
Check local listings for contactless, drive-through haunted houses, drive-in movie theatres playing Halloween movies, or “haunted roads” (neighborhoods lit up and decorated).
4. Learn a Halloween dance
Search YouTube for “monster mash dance”, “monster shuffle” – or choreograph your own, featuring your child’s best moves! Practice then perform in your costumes.
5. Camp out under the blue moon
Did you know there will be a blue moon on October 31? This will be the first instance of a blue moon in the U.S. since March 2018. So grab your tent, your candy and keep an eye our for those werewolves.
6. Virtual costume party
Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts and WhatsApp are a few examples of great virtual platforms for you to share your spookiest costumes! Maybe you can teach your friends your new monster mash moves!
7. Carve or decorate pumpkins
You can paint or with adult supervision, use carving tools to create your cutest, spookiest or most imaginative pumpkin! What will you create?
8. Halloween mystery box
Test your family’s bravery with the mystery box! Find some closed containers to put in gross or creepy items. You can use peeled grapes for “Witches Eyeballs” or cooked spaghetti for “Intestines”. Have your family use their hands and reach in the concealed box to guess the item.
9. Halloween family movie night
Find a spooky movie, appropriate for all ages, for you and your family to watch together! Many children’s television channels and streaming apps also host movies this time of year. Don’t forget your Halloween snacks!
10. Decorate your home together
Have your kids cut out some bats or spiders and get the family together to create your haunted house. You can use streamers, lights or spider webs to create a spooky backdrop for a virtual dance party or movie night.