Happy Halloween! It’s our most favorite, spookiest time of the year, filled with fun activities, yummy treats, and great decorations and costumes. Normally we’d talk about what kind of snacks you could make for a large gathering or how to decorate for a party, but what if that can’t happen? What if – due to extenuating circumstances – you and your kids are stuck at home this year?

Not to worry! Here we’ve outlined some fun things you can do in your own home with your little ones while still having fun this Halloween. Feel free to take these and put your own spin on them. If you do, remember to share on our Facebook page so we can hear all about it and admire your creativity.

Traditional Activities

Of course, if you don’t want to take on the effort of trying something new, you can still enjoy some more traditional activities at home:

• Take funny pictures to share on social media with your loved ones. Try on different costumes or use the filters found in apps like Messenger and Instagram to don your disguise and commence giggling.
• Watch a Halloween movie while enjoying some caramel corn. Some of our favorites are:
  • Spookly the Square Pumpkin
  • Room on the Broom
  • Frankenweenie
  • Haunted Mansion
  • Hocus Pocus
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas
  • Halloweentown (haven’t seen this one but it’s been recommended by friends)
• Bake some spooky snacks and treats. If you’re looking for easy ways to decorate some tried-and-true favorites try this article “Easy Halloween Ghost Treats to Try Out This Year“.
• And, of course, you can always carve pumpkins into jack o’lanterns!

If you’re ready to try something new instead, read on!

Costumed Tea Party

My daughter loves tea parties, and a Halloween tea party where you get to dress up all your dolls and animals in costume is the best! (We find that the most entertaining way for them to dress up is to reverse everything, i.e. dress the dolls as animals and dress the animals as humans.) If you don’t have costumes quite that small, here are some ideas for cheap and easy ones to make:

• Take a large white napkin or paper towel and draw two black circles slightly off from center. BOOM. Paper ghost.
• Using black construction paper, draw and cut out bat wings and tie them on to your animal.
• Have a cardboard box? Cut our eye holes and arm holes, decorate it like a robot, and put it on your doll for a sci-fi-fantastic robot visitor from space.
• Look around your house. What other items could you turn into a tiny costume?

We also like to play up tea parties with any special treats that they wouldn’t normally get, such as specialty chips or, in this case, chocolate caramel apples. Arranging them on a plate can lend an air of festivity to any boring old thing! And remember: treats at Halloween don’t have to be candy to be fun. My daughter loves pears, and some particularly juicy and sweet ones will always put a smile on her face.

TIP: If your child has their heart set on trick-or-treating, you can place the costumed toys around your home with small treat bags. Then the dolls and animals become the neighbors handing out treats and admiring their costume!

We’re Going on a Treat Hunt

This next activity can follow the tea party or stand alone on its own. Kids love hunting for treasure in games and outside, so why not let them hunt for their treats? Then you can decide if there are any tricks along the way, muwahaha!

TIP: For this you can do either a treasure hunt (kids follow a list of clues or a map to get to the ultimate prize: “x marks the spot!”), a scavenger hunt (kids find a list of items that have treats next to them), or an object hunt (kids look for the same repeated item that has the treat inside, ex: eggs in an EastEaster egg hunt).

Because this is Halloween, we decided on a treat hunt where she could go “ghost hunting”! To do this, you can use either clear treat bags or clear plastic cups, glow sticks, and treats.

Put the treats in the bag or cup, activate the glow stick and put it inside, and place your “ghosts” around your home. Now – and this is key – turn off the lights! Your ghost hunter can hunt the glowing ghosts in the dark and discovers the fun treats inside. Don’t be surprised if they want to repeat this game a few times. 😉

Now that you’ve got some ideas for fun things to do, happy eventing!