Halloween In A Pandemic

In lieu of trick-or-treating, we decided to throw a small Halloween party at home for the little cousins during the day. There would be plenty of treats and fun games / activities to earn candy—like our homemade piñata! I’d just leave a candy bowl outside with a note Jeremy told me not to be lame, so I handed out candy in my mask at arm’s length to any trick-or-treaters that came to the door. All the kiddos were a safe distance behind me, but could still see all the costumes.

Recycled Costumes

Speaking of costumes, we borrowed these fabulous homemade Angry Birds ponchos and beanies from Aunt Julie who crafted them years ago. My sewing stuff was still boxed up, so it was the most convenient thing to reuse these ready-to-wear costumes! It makes me want to do a swap or something in the future from how stress-free this was!

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Halloween Decorations

I didn’t decorate really—we had a couple of spots with spider webs and glitter spiders, the pillows for the month were black/white/gray, there was a fabric flag on the couch that read “BOO”, and we had some live and carved pumpkins. My sister-in-law Alyssa lent me her set of DIY floating candles she wasn’t using this year so we could transform our living room into an enchanted ceiling having a magical moment. I’m pretty much in love with them and have plans to save up for battery-operated remote-controlled ones since I don’t think I have as much glue or patience to make them. So grateful for how COOL and kind of creepy but non-scary it feels with them!

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Halloween Party Games for Kids

I wish I could post a video because the still photos I took do not capture how much these guys were laughing their heads off. The kids couldn’t get enough of the games! We did “Bug Bug Spider” (a silly version of duck duck goose), Halloween BINGO with laminated cards we can use for years to come, musical chairs, and dance freeze. There were plans for “Pin the Spider on the Web”, a Mummy Ring Toss game, and a “Feed the Monster” box game that we either had missing pieces or didn’t have time for.

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Silly Spider Piñata

The favorite activity might have been our homemade spider piñata! We had a ton of moving boxes, so I gift-wrapped one in some leftover plastic tablecloth rather than painting the cardboard. L helped me cover it in black and red crepe paper that we cut fringes into. We taped one of the carrier handle holes shut, and used the other to secure the legs using paper clips I twisted into hooks plus stuff it with candy. The giant googly eyes ended up being hot-glued at the end, along with white paper fangs.

The kids each had a couple of turns (blind-folded for the older ones) swinging at it with a baseball bat before it broke open and they gathered candy like pros! Our next door neighbors came to see what all the fun was about, and shared in the candy bounty.

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Halloween Party Food

Jeremy made chili, Nic made corn bread from scratch (it was delish!), Alyssa made pumpkin cookies, and I made “pumpkin patch dirt cups” I found from Pinterest. I loved the chocolate! But not many of the kids could handle that much haha. When the cousins left, we lit the carved pumpkins outside, turned on our porch light to signal that we were giving candy, and sat down for a Harry Potter movie with popcorn and candy corn. We paused the movie with each ring from the doorbell. When the last trick-or-treater left, W had fallen asleep with a pile of candy wrappers near him. All the kids were super tired, but I made sure they brushed their teeth and got into PJs before I headed to clean the kitchen. Even though we broke away from some of our Halloween traditions this year, we had a ton of fun!

Happy Halloween!