Life in Stepping Stones

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It’s a very weird year for all of us. From drive-by birthdays to zoom baby showers, we all have had to adjust to a temporary new normal. As the holidays arrive, it’s time to start thinking outside the box on our favorite traditions and for some great alternatives.

My favorite holiday of the year has always been Halloween. I love decorating the house, walking around the neighborhood to look at decorations, taking my little one trick or treating, and giving out candy while seeing the great (and not so great) costumes everyone arrives in. While I know being outdoors is one of the safest activities during the pandemic, and there will be neighbors giving out candy, I don’t feel comfortable going to homes and seeing neighbors that may or may not being following the proper protocols for social distancing. It’s too risky to me, especially with a 5 year old who will run to every house he sees without a second thought.

Without further ado, here are my ideas and tips on how to celebrate Halloween this year during the Covid pandemic with your kids.

1. Candy Hunt

Pull out your Easter egg collection and fill them with candy. Keep it simple using the colors most associated with Halloween like orange and purple, or take it to the next level by decorating them! Glue on eyes to make monsters or legs to make spiders. Paint them to look like vampires and spiderwebs, and “dress them up” with superhero masks. Throw eggs around the yard and send your kids on a hunt to collect them all.

What You Need:

• Easter Eggs
• Wiggly Eyes (Find some glow-in-the-dark eyes for some added nighttime fun)
• Glue dots
• Paint markers
• Optional: foam sheets (to make superhero masks and mouths), chenille pipe cleaners (to make the spider legs), facial feature stickers

2. Decorate the Yard

Just because you’re not opening your door to people because of the pandemic, doesn’t mean you can’t decorate! Instead of decorating your front yard, decorate the backyard for the candy hunt. I’m not going to lie, having a half painted playhouse actually worked out very well as a Halloween decoration! I also couldn’t resist getting some Wizard of Oz legs to place under the house. My favorite part of decorating though was after setting up the cemetery, our son picked up his bow and arrow and started walking around the headstones shooting at vampires and singing “Walk Through the Fire” and “Going Through the Motions” from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical.

If you have a playhouse and your kids are old enough that you won’t traumatize them, find your spookiest indoor decorations and turn it into a mini Haunted House filled with treats inside!

Family Fun Activity: If you have a home laser tag set, pull it out after dark and play a game in the haunted backyard! If you don’t have laser tag but have nerf guns, pull those out during the daylight instead!

3. Bake Halloween Treats

Have some fun in the kitchen and make your favorite spooky treats. Whether you make caramel (or candy) apples, bake some cupcakes with white chocolate spider-webs, or decorate haunted house, pumpkin, bat, ghost, or skeleton cookies, you and the kids will have a great time making treats and decorating them together!

To make the cookies above, you need:

• Patience
• A husband that doesn’t eat pieces of the house…

Okay. I’m just kidding…mostly. I did have four houses originally and my husband did swipe a roof cookie before I decorated them, without knowing what I was making. In all seriousness though, this is what you need:

• Halloween Cookie Cutters
• Gingerbread House Cookie Cutter
• Your Favorite Sugar Cookie Mix (I used King Arthur Gluten Free Sugar Cookie Mix) plus the ingredients listed on the box
• Royal Icing
• Food Coloring
• optional: Halloween Sprinkles

This was my first time making royal icing and working with royal icing. It’s not as easy as it looks and was definitely a learning experience for me. If you’ve never worked with icing before, let it sit out a bit and harden slightly first before making any small details like the eyes, mouth, windows, roof detailing, etc. I’m used to working with the consistency of buttercream frosting!

4. Watch Halloween Movies (or TV Show Episodes)

If your kid has a favorite scary movie, its time to pop some popcorn, turn on the TV, curl up under a blanket as a family, and press play! Our son loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I think we’ll be sitting down to watch his favorite Halloween episodes, Halloween and Fear, Itself. For the little ones who aren’t oddly addicted to Buffy, I’d highly suggest watching Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest on Amazon Prime. Other great kid-friendly Halloween movies include Casper, Hocus Pocus, Hotel Transylvania, and The Addams Family.

5. Carve a Pumpkin

Preschoolers will need your help carving but older kids will have a great time doing this themselves! Use some simple patterns online or ones that come with the carving tools, or challenge yourself with some complex patterns and see who can carve the best pumpkin! For kids under 5, bring out some paint instead and let them paint their pumpkins! If you don’t mind the clean up, get out the glitter, sequins, and glue too. You can even cut some yarn and glue it on as hair!

Carving Challenge: If you’re family is particularly crafty, carve or paint your pumpkins to look like each of you!

6. Dress Up!

Finally, it’s not Halloween unless you’ve got costumes on. Now that you’ve got your decorations up, throw on some costumes, set up the camera, and take some fun family photos in the backyard.

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Honestly, even without the Covid-19 pandemic, these are great ideas and alternatives if you have a newborn in the house and just want to stay home! As disappointed as I am not not take our son trick-or-treating this year, I’m also secretly glad with a 5 month old baby that we’ll be home for the evening, without many people ringing the doorbell. While we may not be going out, we’ll still set out a bowl of candy for the few trick-or-treaters that come by.

Happy Halloween everyone!

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Trying to brainstorm ideas for your kid’s upcoming birthday? Read my blog full of tips and ideas on How to Throw a Birthday Party During the Pandemic.