Halloween has been long gone now but I haven’t found the time to write what we did on this unusual Halloween day of 2020. We tried to make it as normal as we could for the kids and I think we did a pretty good job. The estate we live in was on the same page and tried to do the exact same.
This year’s Halloween fell onto a Saturday which was very handy. We had all day to prepare for our little Halloween party. Prior to that, we were meant to have a Halloween party in our house with the cousins. However due to restrictions, this had to be cancelled. I was well prepared and had all the bits and pieces bought weeks in advanced. Instead I sent the cousins a bag of stuff we wouldn’t need, so they could do their own Halloween party.
To get the most out of our decorations this year and appreciate them more, we put them up two or three weeks before Halloween. I didn’t really buy too much new stuff. Everything I bought was really party ware.
The decorations
Chloe loves Halloween, just like her mum. But she doesn’t like it too spooky. And for that reason she wanted to be a pumpkin again this year. So off I went and ordered a onesie from George Asda for this year’s Halloween costume. Matthew isn’t too bothered about the scary aspect of it. He chose to be a zombie police officer. To match the theme, I went and got hubby and I the same type of outfit.
The costumes
Halloween isn’t Halloween without carving pumpkins. A lot of people had trouble finding pumpkins this year just a few days before the big day. That same week the government claimed to remove non essential items from the shops. Pumpkins seemed to have been one of them, even though it is a vegetable. I on the other hand, bought the pumpkins a week or two in advanced. We managed to carve five pumpkins in total. On the last one I got a bit lazy and just painted instead and wrote “boo” on it which gave it a nice and different touch.
During the day Chloe and I were busy baking and cooking Halloween themed food. We made cookies, I bought ghost crisps (pizza flavour, yum yum) and we made spider spaghetti with sauce for dinner. On top of that I picked up a few Halloween themed donuts from the Rolling Donut a few days before. I had planned way more Halloween themed food but there wasn’t just enough time. For breakfast we had coloured pancakes as well.
The Party
We had a lazy Halloween morning and so our breakfast actually turned into a brunch. This meant we could have an early dinner. It suited us really because our plan was to go for a walk around the estate in our costumes to see the decorations and see if we can get any sweets.
After the dinner Chloe and I walked around the estate and left treat bags at the door of her friends she plays with in the estate, some of them she goes to school or creche with. A lot of them had the same kind of idea. So basically no child went home empty handed even though they were not allowed to knock on the doors. There was other ways. We spent an hour or so outside with the neighbours. One of them had snap seeds and the kids enjoyed throwing them. Finished off with a few sparklers. Chloe, at that point, was afraid and wanted to go inside because she didn’t like the big bangs from fireworks.
We continued our part with a sweet scavenger hunt around the house. I found one on Pinterest which directs you through the whole house and ends the front door. The kids thought it was brilliant and they were so excited to follow the clues and therefore discover the sweets.
The last game of the night was “pin the pumpkin”. The sticker, which was the carved mouth of the pumpkin, had to be stuck onto the pumpkin blindfolded. Chloe enjoyed this game and had a few goes at it. We watched “The Haunted Mansion” before it was time to go to bed and Halloween came to an end.
How did you celebrate Halloween this year? Did you make it extra special for the kids?
