4 Creative Ways to Celebrate Halloween This Year

Spooky season is upon us! And in 2020, Halloween not only falls on a Saturday, but will have a full moon, blue moon, and daylight savings time all converging on the same weekend, making it a truly unique Halloween. With a pandemic still going on though, Halloween (just like most holidays) will feel a bit different this year. While trick or treating may be canceled depending on where you live, there are plenty of other fun activities you can do with the family to celebrate. We have a few tips and tricks to keep your Halloween feeling spooky and festive!

1. Make Your House Feel Festive with Decorations and Food

Bring Halloween into your home, by decorating for the occasion! From pumpkins and fake (or real) spiderwebs on the porch, to black and orange streamers, the décor possibilities are endless. In addition to decorations, make festive food throughout the day for the family to snack on. From pumpkin shaped pancakes in the morning to this ghost s’mores dip for an afternoon snack, these will have the whole family feeling spook-tacular. For bonus points, you can make spooky spaghetti and eyeball meatballs for dinner.

2. Play Halloween-themed Movies

Have Halloween movies playing throughout the day, making them as scary or as family-friendly as you’d like. Here’s a list of Halloween movies playing on each of the different streaming services, ranging from family movies such as Hocus Pocus, to some newer thrillers such as Hush. These can be playing throughout the day in the background for ambiance, or be a planned activity for the whole family to participate in.

3. Use Zoom for Fun Social Activities

While we can all agree there’s a certain level of Zoom fatigue occurring, there are creative ways to put a fun spin to make it exciting and engaging for kids of all ages.

• Zoom Costume Parade: For younger kids, set up a Zoom meeting with the neighborhood kids, and have them each take turns showing off their costume. This can just be a parade, or turned into a contest in which the other kids vote for best costume.
• Virtual Trick or Treat: While this activity is aimed at kids, it’s also a great excuse for people of all ages to relive the best day of the year by participating in trick or treating without weird questioning looks of you being too old. With virtual trick or treating, you’ll ask each person participating a joke, riddle or question, and then reward them with a digital treat. These can range from things such as virtual wallpaper, to a credit for an app download, or an online gift card.
• Scary Stories over Zoom: For older kids and adults, you can get a group together to tell scary stories over Zoom. For extra spooky vibes, participate in scary story telling from a pillow fort with all the lights turned off except a flashlight under your chin.
• Virtual Scavenger Hunt: A scavenger hunt gets everybody engaged, and really brings out the competitive streak in people. Participants will break up into teams and receive a list of tasks they must complete in a set amount of time. Here’s a scavenger hunt list we found that’s perfect for Halloween. The team that completes the list first gets a spooky prize!

4. Make Halloween Crafts

There’s plenty of opportunity to get creative with crafts, making them as intricate or as simple as you’d like. Here’s a list of fun crafts for the family, ranging from paper bag monster puppets to a candy wreath.

These ideas for Halloween celebrations at the house will have your family feeling Halloween vibes throughout the day! The activities incorporate the essential parts of Halloween (costumes and candy), so that your kids won’t feel like they’re missing out on any of the best parts of the holiday!