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Pandemic Halloween can still be fun



Shaking up the traditions a little could even be an improvement

Pandemic Halloween can still be fun


If your Halloween plans are either canceled or cut way back this year, fear not: Popsugar’s Nicole Yi has not one, not two, but thirty-one tips for finding ways to still enjoy this most American of holidays. Some are the usual, like: carve a pumpkin, eat lots of candy or put on a ton of makeup. But some are actually quite original and, if adopted in your house, could actually make this year a standout, in a good way.

For instance, she advises visiting an actual haunted place (She offers links of haunted houses around the country. They are an interesting read. Some of the local places are not open this year.), sending mini “pumpkin grams,” watching scary movies all night, taking a graveyard tour, making a spooky Halloween playlist, taking a night hike, sharing ghost stories around a fire, among other genuinely fun-sounding suggestions.

Especially if you have a young reader in the house, I suggest finding some classic ghost stories or poems and having your child read them aloud. Poe’s The Raven, for instance. It’s genuinely creepy, but somewhat funny, too, and not gory.

READ MORE: Should kids go trick-or-treating during the pandemic?

In our house, Halloween has always been a big deal. For years, our tradition was to dress up with our son, head from Phoenicia to the packed Woodstock Halloween parade, trick-or-treat at the local businesses (yes, we did it, too), roaming the closed-down streets. We’d all meet up with friends, take many photos, marvel at the costumes, and enjoy a genuine sense of community. Then we would head back to Phoenicia, where we did more traditional house-to-house trick-or-treating with him, admiring neighbors’ decorations, walking with fellow parents, catching up. It was fun, drama-free, and the candy hoard was off the charts.

While the Woodstock parade is cancelled for the first time in anyone’s memory, other local towns are still allowing trick-or-treating – Phoenicia and Saugerties, for instance. But I personally know quite a few parents who aren’t doing any house-to-house adventuring out of Covid-19 concern. If you’re in that group, hopefully the above suggestions will be helpful.



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