5 fun ways to celebrate Halloween that aren’t trick-or-treating

Halloween can be a lot of fun. Dressing up, decorating your house, having or going to parties. Trick or treating has definitely become more popular too. I remember when I was growing up (a long time ago now, haha) but it was the exception not the norm. But what if you haven’t embraced it? And what if you don’t want your children to go trick or treating or they’re not interested? This is me for sure. We live in an area with lots of older people and also those with very young children. It therefore doesn’t suit our community to be putting on spooky masks and knocking the door at night! Here are my ideas for fun ways to celebrate Halloween if you don’t want to go trick or treating.

Halloween crafts

Naturally Halloween is synonymous with pumpkin carving. But there are tonnes of other fun crafts to try too. Spooky bunting is easy to make and looks great, from ghosts (they can be friendly!) to witch’s hats, spider’s webs to bats, there are loads of patterns. You can download templates from the web or draw it yourself.

You could make some Halloween pictures using tactile elements such as cotton wool for ghosts or wool to decorate mummies. Hang them up or make cards for your friends and family.

Halloween masks are a great idea too. If you’re not sure about pumpkin carving, you could use your masks to dress orange balloons to look like pumpkins, which is great for children too young to use sharp tools.

Halloween buffet

Most of us love a good buffet tea. You can buy a lot of Halloween themed foods now, and while they look great, it might get expensive. If you’re creative in the kitchen, you could think of ways to make your food look spooky. Sausages look like fingers, peeled grapes look like eyeballs, ooh yuk! You could also buy some inexpensive cookie cutters in Halloween shapes and use them to chop your sandwiches, cheese slices, biscuits or anything else.

Why not have a go at making monster faces on your pizza? We like to buy cheap pizza bases then add our own toppings. Use olives for eyes, peppers or tomatoes for mouths, red onion slices for eyebrows. It’ll be a great family activity to make them, and yummy to eat them.

Have a movie night

If you’re not into scary movies or you have younger children in your family there are lots of Halloween themed films without the frights. Casper, Coraline and The Addams Family are all some that spring to mind. Dim the lights and snuggle up with a hot chocolate (and marshmallows of course) for a relaxed evening.

At-home costumes

Halloween costumes can be really pricey and often they will only get worn once. Why not set a challenge for the family to dress up with items already in the house? It’s a great way to have fun and work together, while getting creative with existing materials or items of clothing. You could use your Halloween masks for this too!

You could tie this in with a Halloween disco. Throw on some seasonal tunes – think Monster Mash, Thriller, and Ghostbusters – dim the lights, and have a boogie in your costumes. The living room is a perfect place for a dance! You can even get disco lights on your TV if you have a smart TV with a YouTube app.   

If you wanted to make it more interactive you could have a game of musical chairs or freeze dance, all to the Halloween music of course!

Have a Halloween scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunts are great ways to get into the spirit of things and burn off some energy too! If the weather is dry, you could hide some items in the garden too. There are tonnes of printable scavenger hunt lists online or you could make your own.

If your children are old enough to understand clues and riddles this is a great way to get them to move from one clue to another. You can either hide smaller items at each stop or save it up for one bigger prize. For smaller ones, you might want to just have a list of items to find. There are lots of ideas for printable lists online or you can make your own.

If you don’t want the focus to just be on sweets and chocolate; crayons, balloons, raisins, yoyos, playing cards and bubbles are all ideas for prizes to get your started.

You could even decorate your own bag for your children to collect their goodies in. Buy some plain paper bags and make them spooky with faces or pictures, either drawn or with stickers.

These are my ideas for fun ways to celebrate Halloween if you don’t want to go trick or treating! Have a great time this Halloween and enjoy spending it in whatever way you choose.

Author bio:

Sarah shares three elements of her life over on her blog – food, family and me time. You’ll find an abundance of recipes as well as places to go and things to do.

Blog: www.lifeinfullflavour.com
Twitter: @infullflavour
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