things to do on halloween at home

What are things to do on Halloween at home? This blog was written during the pandemic. It still applies for families who want to stay in on Halloween, but still have fun.

We really struggled with this question. My 4-year-old daughter lives for all things spooky. Halloween is easily her favorite holiday. Trick-or-treating was canceled around us, along with pretty much everything else. We weren’t sure how to make the holiday special for her. Eventually came up with some ideas and spent the weekend having a scary good time. For some of you, your neighborhoods may be carrying on as usual with a few precautions. If you choose not to partake or are in the same predicament as my family, here’s how we made Halloween special this year.

Halloween decor

First and foremost, you have to decorate. I mean, what kind of Halloween is it if you don’t have fake spiderwebs everywhere? I made a run to the local dollar store and Target and picked up some Halloween décor. We usually decorate inside, but this year we made sure to decorate outside as well. The kids really got into decorating and we blasted some Halloween music while we did it.

How to Make Caramel Apples

Next, we decided to try making our own caramel apples this year. It’s really not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  The caramel started to harden a little faster than we expected so we had to move fast to make sure our toppings stuck to the apple. All we did was buy two bags of caramel squares from the store and followed the caramel apple directions on the back. Once the caramel and water were mixed and melted, it was ready for dipping. I made sure to get a variety of toppings which included mini chocolate chips, Halloween sprinkles, mini M&Ms, and the standard nut topping.

 

Halloween candy hunt

After the caramel apples, we did a makeshift version of trick or treating. Going door to door to collect candy is one of their favorite parts of Halloween so we knew we had to figure out a way to make it happen. I decided to adopt a tradition from another holiday and we had a Halloween candy hunt! We got some Halloween treat bags and put a couple of pieces of candy in each bag. Then went outside and hid the little bags all around our yard, much like you would do for an Easter egg hunt. The kids changed into their Halloween costumes and met me outside for a spooky hunt. They had so much fun searching high and low for these tasty little treat bags.

 

 

Carve Pumpkins

Once our candy hunt was done we came back inside to carve pumpkins. We have a family tradition of holding a pumpkin-carving contest. Each carves a pumpkin (mom and dad help carry out the vision the younger kids have). We then post a picture on Facebook or send it to friends and family and ask for votes on whose pumpkin looks the best. We keep the pumpkin photos anonymous and announce a winner once all the votes have been tallied. It’s not a necessary aspect of pumpkin carving, but it makes it a little more fun in our opinion.

Halloween Pizzas

Lastly, we wanted to make dinner a little extra festive as well, so we decided to make our own spooky pizzas. I got some mini pizza crusts and cut them into pumpkin shapes. I also set out all kinds of ingredients and even cut a bunch of pepperoni slices into triangles and rectangles to look like jack-o-lantern eyes and teeth. Once the pizzas were in the oven cooking we put on our favorite Halloween movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and settled in to watch it while enjoying our spooky dinner.

 

We hope you enjoy these things to do on Halloween at home! Have a safe, fun, and Happy Halloween!

By Guest Blogger Amanda Smolko

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