8 Ways to Have a Safe Halloween This Year
Halloween will be here before you know it!
Perhaps in your community, the fall festivals, the community Halloween parties, and trick-or-treating have been discouraged or even canceled.
You may be wondering how you can celebrate a safe Halloween with COVID-19 restrictions still in place.
Is Halloween canceled because of COVID?
You need to check with your local and state regulations. In some parts of the country (United States), the COVID numbers have decreased and the restrictions are being lifted. Please follow what your city, county, and state leaderships set forth regarding the restrictions.
Restrictions still in place in your area? Then, alter your plans so that they follow the health and safety restrictions in your area. The CDC suggests ways that you can still participate in Halloween activities safely.
8 Safe Ways to Have Halloween Fun This Year
We put together a list of ways following the CDC guidelines that you can use ad still get spooked and have fun this Halloween.
Have a Virtual Halloween party and contest.
Get your family and friends together to have a virtual party and contest. Use your Smart TV to broadcast the party using Zoom or whatever video conferencing programming you have been using to connect virtually.
Have each family or friend participating decorate and get dressed up for Halloween just like you were having people over for a party only have it in front of the camera.
Then continue having the party with your household after the virtual party is over!
Decorate or carve pumpkins with your family members.
You can also include your neighbors and friends at a safe distance of course. Use the pumpkins to decorate your house for Halloween.
Pumpkins don’t have to be carved. They can be painted. Decorations can be glued on them. They can be wrapped in toilet paper to look like a ghost. Pumpkins can be drawn on with permanent markers.
If you do decide to carve them, make sure that you have an adult helping younger kids.
Go all out in decorating your house for Halloween –frugally of course.
Go to the dollar store and pick up some Halloween lights in orange, black, and white and also some spider webs.
Include the kids by making some black cats, pumpkins, and spiders out of construction paper.
Have a neighborhood costume parade on each front yard.
Dress up in your costume for Halloween. Each house that is participating have a parade along the front edge of the yard. Friends and family could be invited to do a drive-by as they did with birthday drive-bys.
Participate in one-way trick-or-treating.
Decorate a place in your yard with spooky decorations. Have a table set up with individually wrapped goodie bags for families to grab and go. Make sure you maintain social distancing from the table.
Tip: When preparing the goodie bags, wash your hands with soap and water for the recommended 20 seconds. Also, wash your hands the same way after picking up the left over bags.
Have a scary Halloween movie night.
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Pick the movies depending on how much “fright” your family can handle. You could start with “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” and then move on up the “fright” scale. The Berenstain Bears, the – Trick or Treat – Spooky Stories is also another good one for younger kids.
Going on up the “fright” scale — you could binge-watch the Halloween series of movies.
You can also include the neighbors and friends by setting up the movies outside and spacing each group at least 6 feet apart.
Visit a pumpkin patch or orchard.
There are still pumpkin patches and orchards that are open. Make sure to wear your mask and use hand sanitizer before and after touching the pumpkins or apples and as always maintain social distancing.
Stay at home with your family.
It can get overwhelming trying to figure out what you can and can’t do on Halloween. If this is happening to you, then plan a night at home!
You could have a fun Halloween night making spooky homemade Halloween pizzas or making scary cupcakes.
Watch the Halloween episodes of your favorite television shows.
Make Halloween crafts with the kids. The possibilities are endless.
Don’t stress about staying home Halloween night. You do what is best for you and your family.
Disclaimer: All these suggestions have followed the CDC guidelines on their Holiday Celebrations page at the time of the publishing of this post.
It can get overwhelming keeping up with all the information that is out there about COVID-19 and what you can and can’t do. The information is still changing every day.
Don’t let this Halloween and the other holidays that are coming up be about what you can’t do. Take what you can do right now and make the best out of it. Find ways to make Halloween fun and stay within the guidelines for your city, town, or state.
We hope this post has helped you see that there are things that you can do during this ever-changing time in our lives. Leave us a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Halloween Fun!
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So many things to rethink in these times of Covid. I don’t have kids so it’s one less thing for me to fret about. And I am pass the age of Hallowe-en parties. I don’t want to rain on the fun and joy of celebrations but maybe we can do away with Hallowe-en??? I don’t like ghosts, goblins and skeletons and graveyards in the front lawn. You can boo me. 🙂
I love these ideas – I have yet to hear if there is an “official cancellation” – I may make up separate baggies for the children. I don’t want to disappoint… I like the idea of setting up the table and allowing children to each take a baggie and go.
AND YES! on spirited decorations!
Those are all great ideas. We have a farm in the hills overlooking Puerto Vallarta, Mexico so we won’t see any trick-or-treaters this year. In the old days in Wisconsin, we would have one of the boys sit out on the porch and give all the young people candy but it ended up being run over by teen-agers so we had to stop that. We will still have goodies for our grandchildren when we see them later in the fall. Enjoy the holiday
We have quite a few children in our Community and I was thinking of contacting the parents to purchase Candy and we could do a Trunk or Treat and decorate our cars. The kids can dress up and ride by on there Bikes or Scooters and we could have refreshments for everyone. I might even do a Storytime.
Festival days are the toughest with Pandemic.These are good tips to stay safe and have fun too.
Great tips! In our neighborhood there is a Halloween street where we normally go to trick or treat and it has been canceled this year. It will be a cozy indoor affair this year. Found your post on Wonderful Wednesday link. -Marie This Dear Casa
Glad you found us! They are canceling all events for the upcoming holidays in our area even though our positive case numbers have gone down. We are going to stay in this year.
These are some great ideas. We’re still going trick or treating, but everyone has masks on, so we’re good. We’ll be passing out candy as well! We just have sanitizer nearby.
Great tips! I am so sad all the halloween parties are getting canceled! But as you suggested, we will have our own party yay…
These are really great ideas. My town is making a drive-in theater for Halloween night and showing Ghostbusters. I was really happy they thought outside the box. But we’re actually probably going to go camping and tell ghost stories in the woods!!
Great tips! Halloween is going to be very interesting this year to say the least.
So many great ideas. I have seen some great way to keep Halloween going and still stick to COVID rules. Enjoy your Halloween.
Great ideas and post! Pinned! Sadly I did not go all out in the yard this year. We are going to celebrate indoors this year.
Such a great and important article. And you Halloween decorations and treats!
Great tips! I’ve heard about a lot of different plans this year. We’re going to sit it out, but I’ll make little bags for those who don’t and leave them on the stoop.
I like to make Halloween fun for everyone. It doesn’t have to be creepy or spooky. Just plain and simple fun. Lots of sweet treats, decorating, creative costumes and laughter.
Thanks for all of your ideas! They help a lot.