Now that it's the first day of October, I feel like I can ask folks about what they are doing for Halloween. We usually trick or treat, but based on my reading of the CDC guidelines, that is being discouraged this year. I was wondering what other people are doing to still make everything feel festive?
Ugh. I have no idea. CDC is discouraging it, but that just sucks. It would be easy to encourage distancing and have people wear masks to answer the door or sit outside to hand out candy if the weather is nice.
We have friends whose main source of income is they own one of those gigantic professional haunted houses. They’ve already started posting all the “Gubment don’t own Halloween! Turn on those lights and go for it!” memes. I get it. It’s their income for the year. But jeez. Be reasonable.
I am still thinking about it. We might go trick or treating and wear masks. However, I am not comfortable with people handing out candy unless they wear masks, and how would I know if they will/ how do I enforce that? I would prefer if people just put out bowls of individually wrapped candy. There are not a lot of people out and it is easy to social distance otherwise. Our state has released guidelines saying if you hand out candy to wear a mask, but I am sure lots of people won't because it is their house.
I also wonder if people will just not participate/ hand out candy, so then it would be us just wandering around for the 5 houses participating?
I don't really have a plan B either since I am still thinking about plan A. And I think the neighbors that we usually go with might go to a kids party if they don't do trick or treating. So I don't think having an outside mini party with just our bubble would work either.
Girl Scouts are doing a drive through pick up, but it is over with in 5 minutes and is a 40 minute drive from my house, so not really worth it. Our park district is doing a masked socially distanced trail on a prior Saturday, but I am working that day.
Our town still thinks it is doing it's normal shindig a week before Halloween, but there are more people there since it is downtown and going into businesses, so I am not feeling wonderful about that either although I think businesses will at least pretend to wear masks (lots of mask wearing under the nose here- sigh).
Post by supertrooper1 on Oct 1, 2020 10:20:38 GMT -5
My area is already discouraging ToT based on the CDC guidelines. I don't have DS this year, but if I did I would be taking him ToT. His dad already bought him a costume so I hope he gets to go. I'll be home handing out candy.
I have been thinking about a trunk and treat. It would be pretty small but I think it would be a nice option to have. I am not sure if it will work out though. The place I was looking at hasn't gotten back to me about using their space and I got a lukewarm reception to the idea among friends.
We are planning to take the kids trick or treating. A 5 second encounter with someone essentially outside, even unmasked doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. I expect our neighborhood will be a mix of houses with lights on and lights off. If people don’t want to participate they aren’t being forced to and if people want to participate they can. It’s simple enough to let people make their own choices about this one.
Post by traveltheworld on Oct 1, 2020 10:38:08 GMT -5
We are planning to do something. Plan A is just ToT like other years, but with masks. Plan B will be doing a scavenger hunt type thing with only about a dozen houses and families we all know and who are all taking the proper precautions, Plan C will be an even smaller thing with just our 2 other bubble families.
I love giving out candy and will probably set up a table on my driveway with individually packaged candies where the kids can just grab them themselves. I think that should be safe enough...
We are planning to take the kids trick or treating. A 5 second encounter with someone essentially outside, even unmasked doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. I expect our neighborhood will be a mix of houses with lights on and lights off. If people don’t want to participate they aren’t being forced to and if people want to participate they can. It’s simple enough to let people make their own choices about this one.
I have no idea. The girls aren't with me this year. Normally we'd have a group of 4-5 families that all go to a very busy neighborhood together. Like, not unreasonable for 15 kids to be at one house at a time in a line busy. So that makes me nervous, because I think the kids will have a hard time social distancing due to excitement and old habits dying hard. If it was a quieter neighborhood I wouldn't be so nervous. But ultimately, won't be up to me and we'll see what ExH decides to do with them. I may or may not join depending on the final plan. Usually we do both walk around with them since it means a lot to them that we all go together.
Our town is doing a drive around scavenger hunt/ToT thing with businesses in town that will decorate out front and then you can go collect candy from them, so that's a good alternative that will be a little easier to control. But who knows if ExH will do it.
DD1 already asked me to use my cricut to make her a mask that goes with whatever her costume ends up being, which I thought was a smart request!
I should mention, that I would love to take the kids trick or treating like normal, but it sounds like are very actively discouraging it in my town. So I am not sure that there would even be more than a handful of people with candy out. I told the kids that we could get a piñata and I would fill it with candy for them. They are thinking that idea over.
DD isn't really into Halloween so she already said she didn't want to ToT. She is decorating her space at my office with fall craft projects and having fun with that. I haven't seen any advertisements for any of the normal Boo Barn carnival stuff. I'm guessing a couple churches may do something but keep it on the downlow and for members only like they did for the 4th of July. I know one church who is going to try and do a drive in movie the Friday before in the parking lot. Our county is also in talk about moving back to phase 1 due to spike in cases so it could be all mute anyways.
We’ll be dressing up and doing something, but it may just be visiting a few select friends’ houses to grab something. I wish we could just sort of nationally decide that kids will trick or treat, and if you want to participate, you can leave a bowl of candy out front and wave through the window - or something.
Here, it seems like there are a variety of fall/Halloween events that you can buy tickets for or reserve. I bought tickets for a drive through scream zone at the fairgrounds and plan to take my older kids. Legoland is offering a limited event where you walk around and get a goody bag, but none of the rides are open. An animal shelter that offers camps has a fall festival. So I’m working on reserving some of that stuff.
Post by librarychica on Oct 1, 2020 12:40:14 GMT -5
We usually ToT at my parents neighborhood, which is a Halloween neighborhood for sure. Think an entire cul-du-sac turned into a haunted house., swarms of people everywhere. My parents are passing this year (mom loves Halloween and usually makes up goody bags for all the kids so she is disappointed but it is what it is) so we won’t go there. My neighborhood is small, old and idk how many will participate. It’s hit or miss most years and the houses that do are always slammed because we are one of the few non-gated neighborhoods surrounded by apartments. So, again, crowds.
Anyway, my plan is to do more controlled Halloween stuff leading up to the day. There’s a preserve we volunteer at that is doing a glowing pumpkin trail — we will contribute some pumpkins, walk the trail with flashlights and then there are animal encounters and candy at the end. It’s all outdoors and their events are never busy. We might also go to a farm stand near my parents’ that’s doing a masked timed-entry ToT during the day of to keep groups small. Then we will have “creepy” movie marathon night of.
I have no idea. We may still go up and down our street and leave out a bucket of candy or we may just do a candy hide and seek at home and watch a movie together. My kids would be happy with either. I should probably buy some candy now.
Update - we’ve decided to just hang out at home and do our own thing and skip TOT.
A lot of the neighborhoods around us, including ours, are allowing ToT, but it is no longer a community sponsored event. The neighborhoods are encouraging people to use masks and leave a bowl of candy out. I think we'll take the kids ToT as long as we can stay distanced from other families. My kids only last about an hour so I think we can do it safely.
I'd still like to go to a local farm to get some pumpkins, but we'll probably do it during the week to avoid the crowds.
Mine are out of ToT, but we always participate in our town's trunk or treat. That will be cancelled I am sure. We don't usually get any visits, but a couple of our neighbors said something about stopping by, presumably because we are rural and keep kids away from the congested area. If that is the case, I am going to cook chili in my garage waiting for them, put up some decorations on my porch to celebrate finally getting a couple of trick or treaters. I will sanitize and mask up to drop A LOT of candy in their bags.
Plan A is to T or T in our neighborhood on Halloween. I leave a bowl of candy on the porch. The city is also having a drive through trick or treat the Saturday before so we might do that too in case the weather is bad or becomes too risky here.
librarychica, what do you do for booing? Kids would love to do something like that to their friends!
We leave a treat bag at the door of two houses with these notes and then dingdong ditch. One of our neighbors booed us a few years ago and the kids loved it so someone starts it every year.
I’ve toyed with treating the kids to a candy shopping spree of our own. Rather than spend $$ on candy to hand out, my kids would be thrilled to choose whatever candy they want to have on hand.
Have also toyed with a Halloween themed egg hunt in the yard with candy filled eggs.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Oct 3, 2020 12:10:41 GMT -5
TOTing seems like something one should absolutely be able to do safely. unfortunately it sounds like the majority of our neighborhood will not be on board with that. They are absolutely of the ilk that everything should be normal.
So, we're going to go to a scavenger hunt at my sister's church and then we're going to DS' besties house for a movie in their back yard. That will get us out of the neighborhood and away from all the kids and parents walking around in big groups not social distancing and scorning you for wearing a mask. : /
Post by sillygoosegirl on Oct 6, 2020 22:13:54 GMT -5
We're going to have a party with my parents and the 1 other households in our pod. We'll have it at my parent's house in the boonies, so we won't be around to feel jealous of the kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, in spite of the strongly worded warning against by the health department.
Someone asked about trick or treating on our school parents page. It seems like a lot of people are comfortable with trick or treating - our neighborhood isn’t a major destination, so it shouldn’t be hard to social distance. The thing about trick or treating that people are concerned about/brainstorming is how to best get candy to kids without people coming too close together or all reaching into the same bowl.
The ideas that are gaining the most traction are either making goodie bags or getting candy bars/large candy and laying them all out on a table. It sounds like there will be enough people doing this to actually trick or treat, so I’m excited about that.
I've decided to do a collage of all of DD's Halloween pictures for fun. One of her friends mom is doing 31 days of Halloween costumes for her 6 month old daughter. It has been so much fun to see her DYI all these different costumes without spending the $$$.
I also thought about letting DD and DS bob for apples (just the two of them), maybe play the game where they eat a donut without hands while the donut is hung from a string...
Kids don’t want to trick or treat. But they are interested in dressing up (Harry Potter themed) and watching Halloweenish movies and eating Halloween ed themed food. Thank goodness it is a Saturday. DH is on call but we will make it fun.
One of our pod moms set up a Google doc spreadsheet for the neighborhood for the elementary kids. The idea is that you enter your name and address and how many kids you have, and then each family gets a map of participating families, and you make and put out little goodie bags for however many kids sign up. We’ll probably make double the amount since I’m sure we’ll get some TOTers who aren’t on the list.
Also, the baby’s Halloween costume arrived. We didn’t need another baby costume and I’m not even really a Star Wars fan - I just thought it was super cute.
Beau and I decided to have a "party" for the kids next weekend since we don't have them for Halloween. It'll be them and two other families in our bubble that go to our school. I'm going to hide easter eggs with glowsticks and candy in them around my yard. We picked out some fun goody bag stuff. And we'll put up a bunch of spooky decorations in the yard. It'll basically be a super casual excuse for the kids to wear their costumes.
I did find out our town is still holding trick or treating on actual Halloween. Not sure if I will go walking with the kids and exH or not yet. They're adamant that we do a family costume, but excluded step mom to be from the costume planning and want exH and I to match... so... it's awkward and complicated.