9 Ideas to Celebrate Halloween During the Pandemic
It is clear that now is not the ideal time for any type of event. There are many difficulties and obstacles with the regulations to reduce mobility for citizens, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, many of us want to move on with our lives in the most normal way possible… And Halloween is very close!
Now, it is crystal clear that we all have to be responsible and very cautious when interacting with others. So I have thought to share some ideas of activities you can do on Halloween, minimizing the risks of contagion and at the same time allowing us, children and adults, to have fun and celebrate.
1. Virtual Costume Contest
You can hold a virtual costume contest with friends and family. You can send the invitation in advance and have people organize themselves at home to prepare some food, drink and dress up and then participate all together in a video conference. In the absence of a party, we have to find solutions to have fun with our people! Laughter is guaranteed …
2. Halloween Treasure Hunt
Another idea is to do a Halloween scavenger hunt. You can hide little gifts or sweets around the house or garden, and then give the children clues to find them. It is an activity that entertains the little ones a lot and Halloween allows for plenty of fun options to play around with.
3. (Safe) Trick or Treat
If you live in a development or apartment building, you can talk to the neighbors so that the children can do “trick or treat”, always using individually wrapped sweets and in plastic wrappers (which you can then easily disinfect at home before eating).
You must talk to all of the participants in advance, and emphasize the need to use gloves when preparing and distributing the sweets. Also the fact that the children would need to wear gloves (relatively easy with a costume, since many have it integrated) or that they constantly use hand sanitizer. If you opt for our jars or skewers of sweets, we assure you a preparation with the strictest hygienic protocols.
Or, if you are going to get together with a small group of children, you can give each of them an individual jar of personalized sweets, so that they can enjoy one of the most popular activities of this celebration, but in a safe environment.
4. Carving Jack o’ Lanterns
Carving pumpkins and making Jack o’ Lanterns is a very fun activity, and it can easily be done at home with your closest family members. You can also do it outdoors with a slightly larger group of people, as long as you keep in mind social distancing. Afterwards you can place the pumpkins in the windows or the entrance of the house with a candle lit at night. They are terrifying and so decorative!
You can do a decorative pumpkin workshop, a craft in which children can stain their hands, and they love it! You can choose the design that you like the most and they are beautiful decorating the house during the fall, the celebration of Halloween, and even until Thanksgiving! Here you have a tutorial on how to make decorative pumpkins step by step. In addition, the good thing is that you will already have them for later years, since if you take care of them, they will last a lifetime!
5. Make DIY Decorative Pumpkins
You can do a decorative pumpkin workshop, a craft in which children can get their hands dirty, and they will absolutely love it! You can choose whatever design you like the most, and they are beautiful decorating the house during the fall, Halloween, and even until Thanksgiving! Here you have a tutorial on how to make decorative pumpkins step by step. In addition, you can keep them for years, because if you take care of them, they will last a lifetime!
6. Halloween Crafts
A cool craft to do with children is to make mini Halloween piñatas with them. Then you can fill them with sweets, messages, clues or gifts and hang them around the house or garden so that the children can open them.
In this other post I give you several ideas of easy and low-cost Halloween DIY crafts to decorate your home or party, such as bugs in formaldehyde, pumpkin candle holders or black paper roses.
7. Have a Spooky Movie Night
Throwing a terrifying movie night is always a great plan to celebrate Halloween. Make some popcorn or prepare a fun Halloween recipe and choose one or several movies that are age appropriate for the participants. For children, the following films may be good options: The Corpse Bride, Monster House, Hotel Transilvania, Coco, The Addams Family, Casper, Gremlins, Frankenweenie …
8. Haunted House
With the help of close friends and family you can make a small passage of terror or haunted house in an area of your house or garden. Using cardboard and black paper or plastic tablecloths, you can make a sort of tunnel and place masks of horror characters, or decorative plastic elements such as bones, insects, bats, mice, bloody knives, etc …
Use a dim light to create atmosphere. You can use small led candles, so there is no risk. By adding spooky background sounds you will achieve a sinister atmosphere. Here you have some links to Halloween music for kids and sinister Halloween music on Spotify. Here I also found some scary background sounds, such as screams, doors opening, chilling laughter …
9. Make Halloween Cupcakes
I must admit that I am a big fan of cupcakes, since they are relatively easy to make and then you can either make a simple decoration or make it intricate. There are thousands of recipes to make them, here I will share one that I love and is quite easy, Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe.
For decorations there are endless options, but here is one that is easy to make with children and looks quite stunning: How to make fondant pumpkins. Kids love to participate in these types of creative activities in which they can get their hands dirty. And later you can eat the final result!
I hope that you have a wonderful Halloween, in spite of the circumstances, and that you can enjoy with your loved ones. Happy Halloween!
