6 way to celebrate Halloween in 2020

Halloween 2020 is looking a little different this year. Our local government has already released guidance on how we should celebrate Halloween. Unfortunately, I live in a hot zone where positive COVID numbers keep going up and up so the recommendation is to celebrate Halloween within our household and skip the trick-or-treating this year. I have already seen the Facebook groups going crazy with all the ideas on how to celebrate with these new restrictions.

Lucky for us, our kids are still little and while our 4-year-old William would enjoy trick-or-treating, the kids don’t really know what their missing and we can still make Halloween fun. This year poses an extra challenge in that Halloween falls on a Saturday! This means we have a whole day to fill with Halloween activities. Usually we would leave most of it to daycare or school and then race home to get the kids ready to trick-or-treat, but no… not this year! There are, understandably, a lot of people who are upset that we can’t go out for Halloween, but Halloween does not have to be cancelled this year. There are lots of fun ways to celebrate even without the traditional trick-or-treating.

Here’s a list of fun ways to celebrate Halloween 2020, the COVID year.

1. Dress up your kids

Even if you are not going out for Halloween it will still be fun to dress up! Playing dress up is a great way to encourage make believe play and imagination and kids will love it if you participate too! This year, we are doing a family costume. William picked the theme so we will all be dressed as Spiderman! This is Lily’s first Halloween and we are fortunate to have a lot of hand-me-down costumes so she will be dressing up all week!

2. Do some Halloween crafts together

I went to the dollar store early in the month to pick up some fun Halloween crafts and activities. Some of my favourites items include Halloween window stickers, paint kits and craft kits. Most of these are for toddlers or older kids but the gel stickers are great for the little ones.

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3. Pumpkin carving

A lot of families carve pumpkins as a Halloween tradition and this year should not be any different. I’m interested to see how my kids will react to pumpkin carving this year. My guess is that William will be grossed out about scooping out the seeds but Lily will totally go for it. And while this activity starts off with every intention of being a family activity, we all know it will be mom or dad who finishes the carving. But that’s ok, because they will look great on the front porch.

4. Halloween walk

I’ve read that a lot of people will dress up their kids and take them on an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood to look at all the Halloween decorations. We have a few houses that go all out for Halloween so I’m excited for the kids to see these. Of course, we will check out the cool pumpkins everyone has carved as well.

5. Scavenger hunt

This is for sure on our list this year. Just buy all your favourite candy and treats and do a scavenger hunt at home! Kids love finding eggs at Easter so why not do the same thing at Halloween? The best part is you will know exactly what candy the kids are getting and where they came from. No need to quarantine the Halloween candy!

6. Movie night with Halloween treats

There are some kid-friendly Halloween movies and shows you can watch together. Halloween is a great excuse to bring out all the snacks. William loves popcorn and Cheetos! You can also make some fun Halloween treats. Some fun ideas I found were Hot Dog Mummies, fruity ghosts and pumpkins, spider sandwiches, pumpkin quesadillas and ghost/pumpkin cookies. Even better if the kids can participate in making the snacks.

If you live in an area where you can go out to trick-or-treat then be safe and follow the rules to stay socially distant. For those who are not trick-or-treating I hope you are able to do some activities to have a fun Halloween.

Have a Happy Halloween and I can’t wait to see all the kiddies in their costumes! On social media! Ha!

Let me know what your plans are for Halloween this year!