If you don’t feel comfortable taking your kids trick or treating, here are some fun alternatives to Halloween trick or treating they will enjoy!
Halloween Alternatives
by Tawra Kellam
Here are some alternatives to trick or treating for those of you who don’t feel comfortable taking your kids to strangers’ houses at Halloween. This is also great for young kids or if your kids are sick but still want to dress up and collect candy. As usual, these are just ideas to fuel your imagination. Be creative and have fun!
Have the Great Pumpkin visit. After dinner put the kids in the tub. While they are bathing, hide candy all over the house or yard. Then you can leave a trail of leaves around leading to the candies. Light some candles and turn off the lights. After the bath, let them put on their costumes and hunt for the candy.
Try letting the kids trick or treat door to door in each room of your house. Let them put on their costumes and you and your husband or grandparents can hide behind the door and give out the candy. This works much easier with at least 2 adults giving out the candy so that one can give out candy while the next is going to the next room.
Halloween Hunt:
Using the same idea as an Easter Egg Hunt, hide little bags of candy corn, or other fun candy around the back yard. Set the kids loose and let them find the candy. Be sure to keep back some of the candy in case someone does poorly. That way you can give them a few more and keep it fun for everyone! You could also put the candy in color coded bags – red for Sally, blue for Bobby and that way they know the red is for them and the yellow is for someone else to find. This works especially well if you have children of different ages.
For another fun twist on this idea, hide mini pumpkins instead of candy. Let the kids find and decorate them with craft paint. Let small children attach construction paper cut-outs with glue sticks.
Guess How Many:
Fill a jar with candy corn or candy pumpkins and have guests guess how many are in the jar. (Don’t forget to count as you put them in the jar!) Place the jar near the door and hand each guest a 3×5 card to put their name, their guess and their favorite Halloween candy. Halfway through the party read them all off and announce the winner.
Halloween Memory Game:
Place a few theme items such as a candy corn, apple, mini pumpkin etc. on a tray. Show the tray to the guests for a few seconds, then have them write down (or call out) as many items as they remember.
How Many Words:
Hand each person a sheet of paper printed out with a Halloween word or phrase such as Haunted House, Trick or Treat, or Scarecrow. Do these on the computer so you can include some small Halloween Graphics. Ask each person to make as many words as they can out of the letters in the phrase or word you’ve given them!
Those are clever ideas. You have a creative mind!
have a few little ones over and put parts of costumes into rooms.
ex. old dresses shirts pants boxes suspenders bags in one room
hats wigs masks face paints in the next
shoes or foot coverings in the next
add ons in the last room.
have them go as a group or 2 at a time and make up a costume as they go.
take pictures of the finished costume.
If you have 2 families do this go to the other house and have snacks and games for everyone.
What a great idea to run it like an egg hunt! We live in the country with no sidewalks or streetlights and houses far appart. For years I have dreaded this holliday.
Our church is having a “Trunk or Treat” activity over the Halloween weekend and it’s been a blast! Church families set up their cars in the parking lot with easy-to-play games and the kids go around playing all the games and getting candy!! Call different churches in your area to see if they are sponsoring a Trunk or Treat near you!!!!!
This way, they have fun, get candy and you can keep your eye on them the whole nite!!!
Our Church has a Noah’s Ark Party. Kids dress in any animal or Bible character or come as they are. No scarry masks or outfits. We have games, brown paper lunch sacks full of candy to give each child as they leave. We have a group time and explain that we choose to do something good on the night of Halloween when there are some people who do bad things and also explain about some people looking to evil while we look to Jesus, etc….We have snack time with veggies, cheese, rice krispie treats & brownies & punch. We have a fun night! Some churches also have a harvest party with chili & a campfire & wagon rides & games. Each child goes home again with candy. Christians should always have the MOST fun…….we just choose to have fun that would honor Jesus. Also I have heard of some mothers having their “play” groups have a Noah’s Ark Party in their home. This is probably nice for very small children. Have fun!!
Hi Tawra,
Great ideas! When my daughter was little my sister and I (she had two kids about the same age) would decorate the house for halloween and as we did we would put candy near or under the decorations(out of the kids site) as halloween night got near we would let the kids “candy hunt” in the house. This was a nice way to get them them ready for a night of fun. We never took them to strangers houses only the people we knew and then we would head down to a neighbors house that woud give all the kids hay rides and hot chocolate along with a bag of candy and fruit. my daughter is grown now but she still remembers those special halloweens!
Our church does a “Light the Night” evening, where we transform our parking lot & church gym into a huge party with free food & games. Many of us volunteer to run different game stations, help with blowing-up balloons, a petting zoo with live animals, a bounce-room, hay ride, etc. It’s an outreach event we offer the community, and a great way to spend a fun evening with the whole family.