Safer Ways to Celebrate Halloween

Everything is different this year, and we’re all trying to figure out how to celebrate Halloween in a safer way.

The CDC has issued guidance about Halloween, in which they’ve categorized activities as “lower risk,” “moderate risk,” and “higher risk.”
Unfortunately, traditional trick-or-treating and indoor costume parties are considered to be higher risk activities.

With that in mind, we’re offering up some inspiration for alternate or modified Halloween activities. These ideas come from our friends at Charlotte on the Cheap.

Keep this in mind: The risk level of any activity, no matter how well planned, depends on the behavior of the people at the event. Will children be well supervised? Will people accept the need to wear a mask and keep a distance? Is there alcohol involved?

As always, if you’re not feeling well, PLEASE stay home — regardless of whether you’ve been diagnosed with something or not.

Candy Hunt

Instead of trick-or-treat, hide candy in the yard like an Easter Egg hunt. You can buy Halloween-themed plastic eggs to put the candy in.
Check out these options from Amazon:

Scavenger Hunt

Alternatively, create a scavenger hunt, and give kids a sheet with items to look for. If you’re not feeling creative, you can download printable sheets from these sources:

Socially Distant Costume Parade

Organize your neighborhood for this one. Spectators can watch from their front yards, and participants parade in family groups down the street, leaving space between the groups.

Zombie Walk

Just like the costume parade, but all zombies!

Cookie Decorating

Just recycle this traditional holiday pastime — with a set of Halloween cookie cutters, and maybe some orange icing, sprinkles, or M&Ms for decorating.

Another variation might be to decorate a gingerbread house as a spooky haunted house. It’s a bit early, but you may be able to find gingerbread house kits at Trader Joe’s or another grocery chain.
Amazon has several options for spooky themed cookie cutters.

Safer Trick-or-Treating

If your community is trick-or-treating, make it safer by walking in family groups, and finding ways to provide some distance between the trick-or-treaters and the people giving out candy. There are tons of examples of candy chutes, for example! Just google “candy chutes” and you’ll see many approaches, but the basic idea is a chute that you slide candy down.

Create a DIY Candy Hedge! This is a pretty clever idea. Follow the above link for instructions, but the idea is that you create a backdrop frame and then hang garland strips from the top, and connect candy to the garland with clothespins.

Set up spooky driveway tables with treats for kids to take.

Or use a grabber hand to give kids the candy!

Go All Out on Pumpkin Carving

Browse through hundreds of free pumpkin carving stencil patterns.

Double Duty Masks

Regular Halloween masks won’t necessarily provide protection, but there are many Halloween-themed protective masks available now. Shop around and see if you can incorporate one into your costume.