However, while the coronavirus is certainly affecting things, it doesn’t have to affect how much fun you and your family can still have. Here are a few options to help you celebrate Halloween, while also keeping your family safe: 

Virtual Costume Contest

Just because you aren’t going out doesn’t mean you can’t show off your costume and make-up skills with your friends. Use video conferencing to plan a socially distanced costume party. Going this route, you can still enjoy refreshments and conversation while letting people strut their stuff digitally.

Consider gift cards or other virtual prizes for best costumes, scariest makeup, and even the best dance moves to “Monster Mash” or “Thriller.”

Over-the-Top Decorations

Make up for any lack of going out by making your home as spooky as possible. Go all out with fake cobwebs in any corner, Halloween banners, spooky lights, etc. 

In addition to any store-bought decorations, try your hand with crafty gifts. Bring the kids in on the fun, and have them help carve or paint pumpkins, create paper mâché spiders, and cut black cats out of construction paper.

Halloween Candy Hunt

Consider this Halloween with an Easter twist. Instead of going out trick-or-treating, bring the fun closer to home by hiding candy and other treats all around the house and/or your backyard. Your kids are still likely to get excited at the prospect of candy, and so will burn off some of that excitement while they’re running all over the place.

Do keep track of where you hide candy. Don’t want to miss out on any of the good stuff. Nor do you want to find an old, dried-out chocolate bar under the couch a few months from now. 

Scary Movie Night

There are so many funny, freaky, and family-friendly movies out there. Halloween night is the perfect time to watch a couple three of them together.

Make this film festival even more of an event by coming up with themed snacks and a suitably spooky setting in the living room, or wherever the screenings will take place. Decadent treats, and staying up a little later than normal will make the whole thing feel wonderfully naughty. (And what can it hurt, after all? Halloween’s on a Saturday night, so you still have Sunday to recover.)

Responsible Trick-or-Treating

If trick-or-treating is available where you live, you can certainly opt to do so. Just be sure to follow all required guidelines, including appropriate masks and social distancing. 

If you are handing candy out to others, consider coming up with alternative ways to pass it out responsibly. You could try a grabber/reacher tool to drop candy into a child’s bucket without touching anything or getting close to them. Or you could make it more fun and creative for all involved by setting up a candy catapult, a candy drop chute from your second floor or the top of the stairs, etc.

So, as you can see, you can still have a spooky and fun Halloween. Who knows? You may even find that some of these options are so much fun, you keep doing them year after year, long after COVID-19 has departed.