Celebrating Halloween During Covid – 14 Creative Ideas
Due to the pandemic, and the cancellation of events, Halloween this year might be spent in lockdown or in quarantine. Fortunately there are many things that you, your friends and your family can do if you find yourself stuck indoors this Halloween during Covid.
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Ideas to Celebrate Halloween During Covid
Drive around and look at decorations
Driving around and looking at the decorations on other houses is a socially distanced way to get in some spooky goodness. From ghosts on the windows to spiders and cobwebs on the door, just because you can’t go trick or treating doesn’t mean you have to miss out on this fun.
Decorate the house inside and out
If you get inspired by driving around why not decorate your own house? Buy a couple of pumpkins, find some sticks and get going! If you still have some old costumes, reuse them and make a witch figure on your door, or stuff it with dome sheets and a face mask and prop it in a window or porch. This might inspire others to decorate their own house!
Themed video calls and costume contests.
Video calls have been a big part of socialising during lockdown. And using them to celebrate this Halloween during Covid will bring those planned parties a little bit closer. Video call some friends and have a costume contest! Make a little walkway in your room or hall, give a twirl and show off your spooky costume. Score each other based on the scariness factor (or realness factor, depending on your theme). May the best costume win!
Neighbourhood costume party.
We’ve all seen the socially distant neighbourhood parties. If the weather permits it, why not try it with Halloween costumes? Sit at the end of your drive, eat some sweets and show off those costumes! Play some spooky music in the background and enjoy Halloween during Covid with some friends and neighbours.
Reverse Trick or Treating
There has been some debate on the safety of going trick or treating on Halloween during Covid. If you think it will be safe to do so, make some pre-wrapped bags of treats. Sanitise your hands, and if the treats come wrapped in plastic, the treats as well. Leave them at your neighbour’s door, ring the bell and walk back to the recommended distance. Wave to them as they open the door and explain that you’ve sanitised them. Make sure to wear a mask, limit the houses you go to and sanitise your hands as you go!
Or, if you aren’t going out, pass these bags out at the door after sanitising each bag. This will make sure that the kids aren’t touching each individual treat.
Make scary masks
Remember making masks out of paper plates in school? Who said that needed to stop!. Buy some paint and some scissors and you’re all set to go!
Pumpkin Carving
The classic activity to do. Gather some pumpkin carving materials – find some here. Grab your favourite looking pumpkin from the store and get to carving! Once you’re done don’t forget to add a candle inside for a spooky effect at night!
Scavenger hunt in house/outside house
Easter egg hunting, Halloween style! Buy some big-ish sweets and hide them around your house or garden! Or find some glow in the dark paint and paint some eggs or lollipop sticks to have one in the dark.
Halloween playlists
YouTube and Spotify are full of great Halloween playlists that you can listen to throughout the day (or just the evening). This one on YouTube has 128 songs, from film classics like the Ghostbusters Theme song to Tim Burton’s movie soundtracks. Or, you can make your own! Log onto YouTube, click, create playlist, label it Halloween and go on a hunt for your favourite spooky scary songs. If you have some kids, why not use this to play musical chairs?
Halloween movies
If you can’t spend the evening trick or treating, why not spend it watching movies? Grab some of your favourite movie snacks (or make some of the ones above), and look up a movie! Netflix always has some spooky stuff up (I’ve spotted Scream, Halloween and Goosebumps so far!), as well as Amazon Prime, Hulu and, if you’re lucky, YouTube might have some up also.
Halloween Treats
Even though we will celebrate Halloween during Covid this year, that doesn’t mean you need to miss out on all of the treats! Of course, if you can’t go trick or treating, and you have to miss out on all those yummy treats, why not buy your own? But, that’s a bit boring. Here are some ways you can jazz up those treats!
Marshmallow Pops
All marshmallows will work for these, but preferably round ones. What you will need are some lollipop or cake pop sticks, some food dye or gel, melted chocolate and a paintbrush with a tiny tip and an assortment of sprinkles and sweets.
Place the marshmallow on the stick and paint it! You can do so many different designs, but here are some suggestions: ]
Frankenstein’s Monster – paint the whole marshmallow green. Then when that’s dry, paint the top black for his hair, or dip it very lightly in some melted chocolate. Add some black dots for his eyes and nose and a scar on his head. If you have any, some silver ball sprinkles can be used on the side.
Ghost – the classic, you can never go wrong with a ghost marshmallow pop. Use the black food dye to paint on some eyes and a mouth (I like to go for a scream effect myself). If you don’t mind being sticky for a while, use scissors to cut out little triangles at the bottom. Or alternatively, place it as the head of a cupcake or cookie with dripping white icing down the sides.
Cupcakes/brownies/cookies
Make a batch of cupcakes or brownies, or buy ones with no icing. Make a mix of stiff icing with icing sugar, milk and water. Divide it into some small bowls and dye with food colouring. Go crazy!
Pumpkin – Ice the cupcake orange, and use some icing bags with a small tip for some features. Green for the top, black for the mouth and eyes etc.
Bats – Ice the brownie all white and with some black icing in a small tip icing bag or thin paint brush, and paint some bats onto the top.
Spider web – Ice the top of a plain cookie (I recommend sugar cookies). Then use a small tip with an icing bag to pipe a spider’s web.
‘Blood’ splattered popcorn
Make some popcorn and place it all out on a baking tray. Dip a paintbrush into some red food dye. Hold the brush above the popcorn, and gently flick it towards the popcorn with your finger, by polling the bristles back and letting go. Do this until the popcorn looks appropriately splattered in blood, but not so much that the dye makes it soggy.
‘Bloody’ drink
Buy some lemonade or clear coloured drink from the shop. Use some red food colouring to dye it red. A fun addition is to fill a plastic glove with water, tie it at the end and freeze it a couple days beforehand. Take the glove off the ice and put it in a large clear bowl. Put the drink into the bowl with the hand and now you have a floating severed hand. Gory!
So, while we may be stuck inside this year, or only allowed out for a tiny bit, we can still have fun! Halloween during Covid doesn’t have to be spent doing nothing! Let me know if you try any of these, or if you have some ideas of your own, please leave them in the comments below!
