Halloween at Home: Ideas to Keep You and Your Family in the Halloween Spirit

It’s hard to know how to celebrate the spooky season without putting your family in a medically scary situation, but fear not! We’ve got some ghoulishly good ideas to keep your family in the Halloween spirit while staying at home.

Horror Movie Marathon

If you’re looking for a minimalist approach to celebrating, nothing beats a good ol’ fashion movie marathon! Streaming services, it's your time to shine! Arm yourself with blankets, popcorn, and Netflix’s best horror films. Looking for more kid-friendly options? Disney + has Coco, the Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, and other “horror” favorites.

Halloween Candy Hunt 

Think Easter, but with more mischief. Instead of trick-or-treating, dress your kids in costumes and send them on a house-wide hunt for Halloween treats. If you have a backyard, hide the candy there and have your family hunt by flashlight. Get your smart speakers to play spooky music to add to the atmosphere.

Cookie Decorating Contest:

Is it less messy than carving a pumpkin? Debatable. Is it safer and tastier than carving a pumpkin? Most definitely!

In place of jack-o-lantern carving, buy or bake some classic sugar cookies. Use different color frostings, sprinkles, and candies to create a cookie-o-lantern that you can eat! You can also make cobweb designs, bats, eyeballs, and anything else your fiendish mind can conjure up.

Throw a Masquerade:

A classic idea with a pandemic twist. Instead of decorating and wearing costume masks, you and your family decorate your protective face masks! Buy plain cotton masks in any color, craft markers, sequins, glitter paint, and whatever else you want to use to design your perfect costume face mask! 

Decorate your mask to look like the mouth of a monster, like the face covering of a fairy princess, or create something completely unique! Pair your mask with a matching costume, turn on the Monster Mash, and get to steppin’! It’s time for the masquerade to begin!

Surprise the Neighbors:

Not in a scary way! Leave small treats of cookies, pumpkin bread, or some other goodies at your neighbors’ doorsteps. Invite each of them to do something similar for the neighborhood. If it catches on, you can repeat this idea for future holidays!