Halloween Ideas

I had an outrageous idea. Why not actually plan for Halloween this year?

We have compiled some really fun information in our archives. I thought I would pull it together for you. Print this out, talk with your kids or friends and think about what fun things you can do.

Alternatives for candy: the great buy back

We sort of do a buy back - first, we only trick or treat in our small neighborhood and in the downtown (business) area trick or treat. The candy from the downtown trick or treat we walk right over to the police station or fire station and donate to them - they like to have it

to hand out to kids during their calls and such. We allow the kids to have 1 or 2 pieces of the other candy on Halloween and keep 1 piece for each day of the following week (for most people this would probably be too much - but has been ok with my kids if they eat it with their meal). The rest gets left in the container they trick or treated with and at night the Halloween Witch comes and takes their candy (donates it to the "clubhouse"/real estate office at the front of our subdivision where they set it out for people who come in to look at houses) and leaves them an irresistible (but not real expensive) toy - like an action figure or something. They love the toy so much that they don't fuss about the candy.

Another great idea I heard and want to try once my kids get older is to dispense with trick or treating - and instead hold a pumpkin carving party in the afternoon (or a fall harvest party).

Marnie

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Last year was the first year I tried any "buy back" program...it worked! My kids were 4 and 5; now they are 5 and 6. They weren't expecting me to do it last year. Ahead of time, I had purchased each of them a gift. On Halloween night, after they trick or treated and after everyone had trick or treated at our house, I

pulled out the toys to show them. Their eyes lit up! I told them they could have the toy if they traded in their candy (they got to keep two pieces). They eagerly made the trade! :-) The candy went in the trash (after my DH rummaged through it! LOL).

Not sure what I'll offer them this year, but now they are expecting it, and I think it will be another easy trade for them.

HTH,
Jennifer M.

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Alternatives for candy: other foods

I went to Sam's Club last night looking for individual popcorn servings to hand out at Halloween. They were sold out. Instead, my DH and I found these really cool-looking Halloween bags of pretzels! They come in a big plastic jar; each jar has 60 bags of pretzels. The bags are orange and black, and the pretzels are shaped like bats and ..... hmmmm....something else, I can't remember!

Anyway, I just thought I'd pass along the tip. I was practically dancing out of the store. Not only is it not sugar; it looks "normal" and "festive" and NOT weird! :-)

Cheers,
Jennifer M.

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For Halloween this year we gave out whistles from Oriental Trading Company. We get about 250 kids. I'm happy to report that it went over very well. We got positive feedback and you could hear the happy sounds of whistles down the streets after children left our house. We even had a few children come back asking for another whistle, saying they dropped theirs. I do recall in past years of serving sugar how some children would greedily grab a handful, but I don't ever recall a child coming back for another piece of candy because our treats were that worthy!

Michele

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I gave out non-sugar treats as well - balloons, fancy pencils, Halloween rings, cute hair ties, stickers, plastic bats, rats & spiders, etc... I was surprised that almost nobody even commented. They did say thanks and some of them looked excited. They had fun picking through to see what they wanted.

I'll definitely do it again next year - I didn't eat a single Halloween "treat" and was not even tempted by my kids' stuff. This is the first Halloween ever without sugar, for me. I feel so much better than I normally would. I'd normally have eaten probably over a dozen Halloween treats that night, not to mention eating them in the days before and after Halloween!!

Carol Ann

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Alternatives for candy: party food

Well, our first Halloween party is over and it was a blast. I was almost sad at first that we would not be going out trick or treating, but now I am not. The kids had so much fun and sugar was not missed one bit.

I made a lot of good food: BBQ chicken, sweet potato muffins, "severed finger" cookies, deviled eggs, no-sugar pumpkin pie with cream, chips, salsa veggies, etc. We had some games to play, but the kids mostly did their own thing. My favorite part was setting up a station in the garage with scary music and I took one kid in at a time blindfolded and

introduced them to my friend "Corpus McCool" who was, dearly departed and unfortunately falling to pieces. Then I placed their hands in several bowls of foods which were "body parts". My favorite part was the over-cooked cauliflower head for his brain, lol! The kids loved it. So did a few of the adults!

Anyway, a Halloween without sugar! I gave out those popcorn bags people had talked about to trick or treaters. What fun.

Hope you all had a great holiday!

Heather

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Games

We went to a friend's house for Halloween and had a great time. We sang, ate, and visited. Kendra was Zorro, and Darcie was a Fire Fairy. Costumes were homemade by Kendra, and were very well done. The other kids also dressed up, and they had great fun playing.

The girls noticed that crackers and cheese were being handed out...and they thought that was great.

Colette

First off, we had a prize bucket, with little goodie bags filled with little toys (notepads, pencils, spider rings, tattoos, stickers, rubber snakes, puzzles, etc.) from the party supply store.

Hunt the pumpkin: Beforehand, we drew, colored, and cut out a whole bunch of paper pumpkins. We put point values on each one, ranging from 5 points to 30. Then we hid them around the house. The kids ran around looking for them and added up the points at the end. Whoever had the most points won a prize from the bucket.

Trick or treat: Beforehand, we made little notes that either said "treat" or gave a trick to be performed (rub your belly and pat your head, spin 10 times while hopping on one foot, sing the ABCs, cackle like a witch, scream in fright, make a monkey face, do the chicken dance, cross your eyes, fake throwing up, etc.). Start with a folded over piece of wrapping paper. Tape one note on it, then wrap it again. Tape another note and wrap it again, and so on until you've used up all the notes and you have a big package. (Old newspaper or old wrapping paper scraps can definitely be used for this!) Then it's kind of like musical chairs, you play the music, and kids pass the package around. When the music stops, whoever is holding the package unwraps the outer layer and either gets a treat (prize from bucket) or does the trick. And so on.

The gross game: Turn the lights down very low. Tell a scary story about a person who died right here on this very spot many years ago. Then slowly pass around his brains (cooked cauliflower chunk), his heart (cooked peeled tomato), his eyeballs (peeled grapes), his hair (corn silk), his nose (stubby part of chicken drumstick worked for this), his ears (dried peach or apricot), and finally, the worms that crawled over his dead body (cooked spaghetti). After the story is done, have the kids write down what they think eat body part was made of. The one with the most right answers gets a prize.

Charades: Write down beforehand some cards with Halloween related characters or actions (carving a pumpkin, flying on a broomstick, witch, bat, ghost, spider, etc.). Then kids draw one and act it out and try to get others to guess.

My kids made bingo cards beforehand, although cheap sets can be bought at the party supply store. They used pumpkin seeds as markers.

Mummy wrap: This works best if the parents volunteer to be mummified, because it turned out that none of the kids liked being the mummy, only wrapping the mummy. We wrote out jobs (wrap left leg, wrap right arm, etc.) and had kids draw a job card. You need about 2-3 rolls of toilet paper per adult mummy, so buy cheap stuff beforehand!

Spider web: Beforehand, roll cheap yarn into balls (bigger if you have more kids at the party), about one per kid. To start the game, tie the end of a ball loosely around each kid's waist. Then have kids stand in a big circle and throw the yarn balls to each other. They keep throwing the balls to another kid until the balls disappear. Then they end up looking like a giant spider web. (The best part is that it takes them a LONG time to unwrap themselves from this one!!!)

Murderer: Beforehand, write out cards for the number of kids you'll have, with all but one reading "Innocent, " and the last one reading "Murderer." Kids draw a card, and then walk around shaking hands with each other. When the murderer shakes hands and squeezes twice, that person is "murdered" and has to wait until the murderer moves on to shake another hand before "dying.".Then everyone tries to guess who the murderer is.

There are zillions more games on the Internet, but these were the ones that sounded the best to the kids and sounded the least messy to me (important when the weather forces your party to be indoors!)

Foods

Here are some ideas that have been a hit with our parents:

Blood Soup: Roast 5 medium beets in tin foil in 400 degree oven for 1 ˝ hours. When cool, peel and chop. Sauté 2 chopped onions in olive oil until translucent, then add 3 sliced fennel bulbs and 1/4 cup vegetable/chicken broth and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 3 more cups broth and the beets and simmer 20 minutes more. Then puree in blender and serve with a dollop of sour cream. Fantastic color!!

Bloodshot Eyes: Hard-boil some eggs (undercooked slightly is easier to manage). Cut them in half lengthwise and put the yolks in a bowl. Smash up the yolks with a fork and add some mayo, mustard and a little milk to get a spreadable consistency. Curry can be added here too. Then spoon into the egg white halves. Top with half a green olive with pimento showing. Finally, take a pointy knife, touch the knife into red food coloring (just a tiny dot goes a long way) and make small slits into the egg white, raying out from the yolk part. Looks very cool, always a hit at our Halloween party!

Slime Ring from green punch: Freeze sugar-free green punch in a gelatin mold along with plastic bugs, spiders and eyeballs. And place a few small glow sticks underneath the punch bowl. When the lights are turned down, the brew will radiate in a mysterious and unearthly fashion.

Float life-size zombie hands made from ice:. Buy a couple of latex or rubber gloves. Wash them thoroughly with dish soap and turn them inside out. Carefully pour in water. Fasten tightly at the wrist with a rubber band. The shape will turn out best if you hang the gloves, fingers down, from your freezer shelf. Plan to freeze your uncanny hands for at least one full day. When it's party time, run warm water over the gloves very briefly--just long enough to loosen the gloves from the ice--and carefully peel them off the frozen hands. The ice fingers break off easily, but that's okay--the disembodied digits just add to the "zombie" effect.

Brain Jello: Serve a brain. Order a latex mold. Mix pinkie sugar-free jello . Serve on a large platter or in the center of your punch bowl.

Chips for Dipping: We took WW lavash bread from the Middle Eastern market (you could use WW tortillas too) and cut into Halloween shapes with cookie cutters. Then we brushed the bread with butter (red and yellow food coloring added) and put it on a lightly oil sprayed cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 5 minutes, or until crisp. This takes a long time, but gives you a good use for those cookie cutters that you might not be using as much anymore!! My 7yo made about 50 of them before she got bored with it and then I made a few more.

Pumpkin Bagel Faces: We also served halved mini WW bagels that we topped beforehand with cream cheese with red and yellow food coloring mixed in to make orange. Put on a platter along with pepperoni halves, sliced black and green olives, shredded carrots, raisins, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced mozzarella cut into triangles. The kids made pumpkin faces on the bagels. Very cute.

Spider-wiches: Spread peanut butter on rounds of bread (we used pumpernickel for the color, but it wasn't whole grain unfortunately) or on round crackers. Stick pretzel sticks or chow mein noodles out to make legs, then top with another round. Top with two dots of peanut butter and either tiny red pepper bits or raisins for eyes.

Safety tips for your kids going out

• Walk, slither, and sneak on sidewalks, not in the street.
  
  
• Look both ways before crossing the street to check for cars, trucks, and low-flying brooms.
  
  
• Cross the street only at corners.
  
  
• Don't hide or cross the street between parked cars.
  
  
• Wear light-colored or reflective-type clothing so you are more visible. (And remember to put reflective tape on bikes, skateboards, and brooms, too!)
  
  
• Plan your route and share it with your family. If possible, have an adult go with you.
  
  
• Carry a flashlight to light your way.
  
  
• Keep away from open fires and candles. (Costumes can be extremely flammable.)
  
  
• Only visit homes that have the porch light on.
  
  
• Accept your treats at the door and never go into a stranger's house.
  
  
• Use face paint rather than masks or things that will cover your eyes.