Happy (and safe) Halloween

by Elizabeth Morse Read

Along with ghoulies and ghosties, long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, trick-or-treaters and their parents need to avoid exposure to Covid-19 this Halloween, too.

With a few changes, some creative planning, and sensible precautions, everyone can enjoy a safe and exciting holiday – and some of your new Halloween “traditions” could become annual favorites!

Safety in (Small) Numbers

Avoiding crowds – especially indoors – is a top priority this Halloween. Plan on a series of small Halloween activities stretched out over several days instead of one big event on October 31. Limit invitations to indoor activities to your immediate family, school-age friends/ carpool pods who share your health practices regarding Covid-19 – maskwearing, vaccinations, hand hygiene, and social distancing. If possible, include “virtual Halloween” activities and contests to include children not in your immediate group. In case the weather doesn’t cooperate with your planned outdoor activities, have backup plans for either invitationonly indoor or virtual events. Work with neighbors, adult friends, teachers, and relatives to plan out several days’ worth of age-appropriate Halloween activities – cookie-making, scavenger hunts, costume parades, spooky movies, or backyard fire-pit scary stories with cider and donuts.

Who’s behind that mask

If you’re going to take your children door-to-door for trick-or-treating, they’ll still need to wear an appropriate mask to protect them from the virus, even though they’ll be outdoors. Avoid children’s costumes that come with a full-face mask or a mask which covers the child’s entire head. Do not let children wear a cloth or surgical mask beneath a costume mask – it will not only interfere with their vision, but it will also make it more difficult for them to breathe. Better to decorate a cloth or paper surgical mask and incorporate it into the costume’s design – a mustache, a scary monster mouth, a clown’s smile, or an animal’s snout.

Get Crafty!

Build up the excitement by getting kids of all ages involved in making holiday decorations! Pumpkin-carving (or

painting) can be a great activity both indoors or outdoors. Keep knives away from the little ones, and give each child a separate carving set or box of non-toxic colored markers, rather than let them share utensils. Give everyone their own beverage and bag of chips (sharing food and drinks could pass on the virus). Lay down plenty of newspapers on the table and floors, and have several grown-ups on hand to help and supervise. Decorate Halloween cookies! You can minimize the mess by buying packages of round sugar and gingersnap cookies and giving each child several tubes of colored frosting/gel. Refrigerate to let the frosting/gel harden. Spend an afternoon making Halloween decorations with colored construction paper, crepe paper streamers, styrofoam balls, paper plates and colored markers to display on windows, walls or in the children’s bedrooms. Draw scary monster hand-puppets on brown paper lunch bags with colored markers.

Virtual Halloween

If the weather’s bad or if your little ones aren’t feeling well, plan some stayat-home holiday activities. Go virtual trick-or-treating using Zoom, FaceTime,

Skype, or Google Hangouts, or have a costume contest (create plenty of “best” categories so that everyone gets a prize!), a Monster Mash dance party, pumpkindecorating contest, or listen to scary stories. Use Netflix Party to sync up with friends and family to watch an age-appropriate Halloween-themed movie in real time – try the animated classic, “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Close to home

Especially for small trickor-treaters who’ve been on Easter egg hunts before, plan a Spooky Scavenger Hunt in your backyard. Put a glow-inthe-dark sticker on a gift bag or “Halloween egg” filled with candies and let each child search with a flashlight after dark. (Buy plenty of those tiny decorative pumpkins and gourds for the little ones to search for.) Or if the weather’s

good and someone has a projector, hang up a white sheet in the backyard and host an outdoor movie night! Organize a “Trunk or Treat Parade.” Coordinate with relatives and neighbors to drive by your house at a pre-arranged time, and toss Halloween treats out the car windows while your costumed kids sit on the front steps or lawn. Or coordinate with people in your neighborhood to put a basket filled with individually bagged treats on top of their car’s trunk so that parents can walk by with their children and put one in their swag-bag. (Don’t let kids rummage through the baskets!)

Activities around town

Even if you don’t want your children to mingle with others beyond your neighborhood this Halloween, there may be some fun, no-contact activities and events you can find – check out local pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and hayrides. Find drive-by or drive-through Halloween activities – haunted houses, drive-in movie theatres or drive-by “haunted roads'' of elaborately decorated homes. May you and your children have a boo-tiful Halloween!

Protect the Grown-Ups, too!

If you’re the grown-up designated to hand out candy from your front porch or driveway, protect yourself as well as others. In addition to wearing a face mask, wear a face shield and gloves if you’re going to come into direct contact with trick-or-treaters. Consider putting out a table on your well-lit front porch or driveway with pre-packed goodie bags and a pumpbottle of hand-sanitizer, and gently remind the kids to keep their six-foot distance.