Ok, honestly. 2020 did not really need Halloween. Scary came early and often starting with a global pandemic and continuing with other disasters including earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and even murder hornets. My sister reported seeing a fox just sauntering down the street in her neighborhood. I had a snake in my bedroom. Yep. I am not in the country and I have never encountered a snake in my life, until this year, and this is my third one. Now, I have two boys, so we have our fair share of toy snakes. So, when my 5-year-old came up to me and said, “Mommy, there’s a snake in the bedroom.” I laughed and said, “You’re funny.” The second time he told me I thought, maybe he has one of the toy snakes and wants me to play along? So, I got up and went into the bedroom and while he got up on the chair (perhaps a clue), he pointed over by the window. Even without my glasses, I thought, huh, that seems a bit larger than our toy snakes. I noticed the eyes and, thought huh, they look real too. Slowly, it sunk in. That snake is real. There is a real snake in my bedroom. Then he or she turned to look at me and started moving. I got my little one out of the room, called for reinforcements and kept my eye on the trespassing reptile until help arrived. I was not about to let it out of my sight. The only thing worse than a snake in your house is a snake in your house that you cannot find. Pretty scary. As is a toilet paper shortage. Indeed, this year has already made us feel like we must brace for what may pop out of the closet or out from under the bed (literally in my case) way prior to October.
Nevertheless, Halloween is here and while we may be sick of masks, hopefully the masks this week come with some cool costumes at least. Kids in costumes are awesome. Little girls dressed as their favorite Disney princess and little jedis everywhere. My two are obsessed with Star Wars and since I am a huge fan, it has been so fun for me as well. This year, my oldest, Wood, wanted to be Chewbacca and my youngest, Graham, wanted to be a ninja, which was a bit surprising since I thought he would pick Darth Maul or Kylo Wren. We attended our first ‘Trunk or Treat,’ Sunday night and in my objective opinion, they were the most adorable Chewy- ninja pair. Like ever. I love how Graham refuses to take his costume off. I thought he might sleep in it. He came home from school and immediately put it on. I found him in full ninja attire sitting at the table asking for a snack.
Last year, I started planning some fun activities around Halloween and ended up with about a week or so of spooky fun leading up to the big day. Below I have outlined what we did as well as some new ideas for this year and included links for sites to recipes or activities. While there is not much original content, it did take time to plan and come up with ideas and activities that were age appropriate. If nothing else, I hope this may save you some time if you are looking for a couple of things to do with your kids this year. I planned on posting this much earlier so my apologies, but there is still plenty of time to insert some extra fun and most of these ideas are simple. Honestly, most of the time it is more about just carving out some time to do something with the boys. Quality time is special no matter how you spend it.
For starters, I think it is fun to create a Halloween playlist. This has been a fun way for me to introduce some classic songs to my kiddos. We listen on the way to school and while we are playing at home throughout the month of October. It is not too late to make one. I have one titled ‘Halloween’ under my name on Spotify. You can certainly use that as a starting point and go from there. The list is certainly eclectic.
Here are 10 Ideas for making this week a little more creepy, a little more kooky, a little more mysterious and spooky.
1.“I put a Spell on You”-The theme on this day is witches. My dad introduced me to Creedence Clearwater Revival when I was a little girl and I love their greatest hits. We made witch hat cookies and watched a movie. I suggested we watch a Harry Potter film or the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We love Harry Potter but this time they chose the Narnia film.
Witch Hat cookies: Recipe here
2. “Rattlin’ Bones”– The theme for this day is skeletons. We made chocolate cupcakes and followed the recipe below to make them into skeletons. Our movie was The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Skeleton Cupcakes: Recipe here
*Now, I have found a chocolate cupcake recipe that we like, so I used the one from this video and then used the recipe above for details of how to make them into skeletons.
Chocolate cupcakes: Recipe here
3. “Mostly Dead”-The theme for this day is zombies, (and it also works for Mondays). We made the little graveyard pudding cups for dessert. It is easy, and kids love pudding, and Oreos. This year, I searched for some new films that might be good to try this week. The one on my list for this day was The House with the Clock in its Walls. I forgot we had tee ball practice for my younger son, so we have not watched it yet, but I am looking forward to it. I honestly had trouble finding an age appropriate zombie film so if anyone else has suggestions, I would love for you to comment.
Zombie pudding cups: Recipe here
*I used instant chocolate pudding because our day was a bit hectic and it worked great. I crumbled Oreos for the dirt on top and even added some gummy worms. Instead of ghosts, I found some plastic zombie hands at the grocery store on the Halloween isle. You can put them on your pudding cup to appear as though the zombie is coming up out of the grave and then use the Milano cookies as suggested for the RIP gravestones. If your store does not have the plastic hands, you can always find one of their little toy figures and bury him (after cleaning) in the pudding with a hand or arm coming up.
4. “Monster Mash”-We made monster crafts with candy bars in the teeth that I sent in their lunches to school. I let them pick their own candy bars. They really liked these. We also watched Monsters vs. Aliens. Monsters, Inc. is good too.
Monster craft: Instructions here
5.“Transylvania Twist”-The theme for this day is vampires. We have made these bloody milkshakes for the last two years. The non-alcoholic version, of course. We have some fun Halloween straws and plan to watch Hotel Transylvania while drinking our shakes. My kids really like all three of the Hotel Transylvania movies and I completely agree. We have watched them over and over and I highly recommend them.
Bloody milkshakes: Recipe here
I know what you were thinking when you saw that recipe, but no, the movie was not Twilight.
6.“Weird Science”-The theme for this day is Frankenstein. We plan to make the Frankenstein twinkies below and we are going to play mad scientist. The link below has some great options for some easy spooky experiments you can do with your kids. We plan on doing the flying tea bag ghost, spooky expanding ghost, and dancing frankenworms. There are lots of examples of experiments you can do. The author has them broken down into physical science, life science, earth science and even stem activities. This year, we are going to give the movie, Monster Family a try.
Frankenstein treats: Recipe here
Halloween science experiments: Full article here
7. “I Solemnly Swear That I am Up to No Good”-Our theme was witches and wizards. We made sugar cookies and decorated them using the cookie cutters from the link below. We also watched Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban. For decorating the cookies, I just looked up some pictures of witch cookies and found several good examples to copy.
Cookie cutter set: Find it here
Sugar cookies: Recipe here
8.“Tombstone”–This day is all about Ghosts. We are going to make screaming ghost donuts for breakfast. Another movie my kids really like is Goosebumps. We will also play a game called Ghosts in the Graveyard after dinner. Once it is dark, you have a person be the ghost and the remaining people have flashlights and look for the ghost. If the ghost is spotted, the person says, “ghost in the graveyard,” and tries to get back to base without being tagged by the ghost. If tagged, the person also becomes a ghost.
Screaming ghost donuts: Recipe here
9. “Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”- This day was devoted to carving the jack-o-lanterns last year. Typically, we each pick out a pumpkin and decide how we want to carve them. I end up doing all the carving for obvious safety reasons. Last year, my pumpkin was Darth Vader. My oldest son, Wood, wanted a vampire so I carved that for his pumpkin and Graham requested a traditional jack-o-lantern. You can also make these easy Jack-o-lantern quesadillas. Ta-daaaaah! Your very own Frightful Fiesta.
Quesadillas: Recipe here
10. “Werewolves of London”– The theme for this day is obviously werewolves. I plan on making werewolf treats using various sizes of Reese’s peanut butter cups following the recipe in the link below. These are my absolute favorite candy, so I am really looking forward to this day. Although, honestly, I always have a stash of these at my house so technically I could make werewolves any time. Really not my fault though. They have Reese’s for every holiday. Easter eggs, Christmas trees, pumpkins, hearts, etc. You get used to having them around and you go to the store and are shocked to not find a Reese’s shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day or the shape of Abraham Lincoln’s head for President’s Day. At that point you settle for the regular ones in between the special occasions that rank high enough to get special chocolate.
Our movie options include Open Season: Scared Silly, or really any Harry Potter film.
Werewolf treats: Recipe here
Hopefully, there is something in this list that helps you have a little more fun with your little monsters this week. We are also big readers at our house. I particularly like the book, Happy Halloween, Stinky Face, by Lisa McCourt, because it highlights the wonderfully silly way children’s minds work. How many times do we as moms have a conversation with our little ones only to think, well that gets filed under things I never thought I would say out loud. “Where are your clothes?” “So, you want to wear the safety hat and the face shield to go to the grocery store? Well ok.” (That was not during the Coronavirus, by the way. Just a regular Tuesday.) “No, sweetheart, I can’t by you your own mountain.” “Why did you put your stuffed giraffe in the fridge?” There is always a reason. One that makes sense in no one else’s mind, but I still love hearing it.
Living in the South means the weather is just now starting to feel like fall. I decided to see what (if any) of my boys’ pants would still fit although I had a bad feeling about it since they have both grown a foot, it seems. However, to no one’s surprise, my boys do not like trying on clothes. They find it annoying and I do not care for the whining that can accompany this activity. So, I created a new game, called “Try on Pants for Candy.” Suddenly, they were extremely cooperative. Now, there is no need to completely fill them with sugar. I had a packet of skittles and threw one at them for every couple of pairs they tried on so all in all they only got like 5-6 each. I got what I needed, and they thought it was funny. The only bad part of my story is that I had to buy new pants.
So, if you find yourself with some leftover candy in the near future, you too can put it to good use.
I hope your Halloween is as scary as you want it to be, full of all the chocolate you deserve and, most importantly, reptile free.
