Parents Weigh In: 19 Fun Ways to Celebrate Halloween

Wondering how to make Halloween extra special this year? Try these cute and crafty ideas to spice up October 31st with your family.

By Scholastic Parents Staff
Oct 30, 2017

Ages

Infant-13


Oct 30, 2017

From silly costumes, tasty treats, and a chance to spend quality time with your family and friends, Halloween is the ultimate fun holiday. However, it’s sometimes hard to keep coming up with new ideas to celebrate this spooky day year after year. While some kids love repeating the same Halloween activities, others may want something new and special. 

That’s why we asked our Scholastic Parents Facebook audience for ways in which their families keep Halloween fresh and creative every year. Check out their tips which are sure to help make your October 31st extra fun and meaningful.

“We love celebrating Halloween. We do a fun thing every day in October. Our favorite family activity would have to be decorating the outside of our house. The neighbors always come by after to see what we have done.” --Denise Zamora

“Reading and collecting ANY and ALL Halloween books. By September 1st my daughter is begging me to take out the Halloween boxes because she knows that's where all the Halloween books are from the previous years!!!” --Rebecca Claire

“We make holiday crafts and we watch Halloween PBS specials. A few days before Halloween, we get dressed up and we go reverse trick-or-treating to nursing homes and handout goodies and hugs. We can read books there too!” --Courtney Roper

“Our family's favorite Halloween activity is making ‘creepy’ food. My son loves to cook and my daughter thinks it's fun. We make a whole meal of creepy things.” --Lesty Newby

“We have what we call ‘Wicked Wednesday,’ [when] we bake special Halloween treats, gather around to read ghost stories, play a Halloween game, and eventually put on a child-friendly Halloween movie to end the night...so much fun!!” --Adina Worthing

“We love Halloween!! We love pumpkin picking and carving our pumpkins and baking the pumpkin seeds to eat them! Mmmm!! And on Halloween night, after trick-or-treating, we go to Great Grandma's house where she makes homemade beef stew and hot cocoa!! This tradition has gone on every single year since I was a little girl and I am so grateful for my own children to experience this loving tradition on Halloween.” --Audrey Gomz

“We volunteer our tractor for a hayride for our local police department's halloween event! The kids get to trick-or-treat and watch movies! Popcorn and hot chocolate is a must!” --Kristina Barruzza Montana

“Our favorite Halloween tradition is our ‘spooky walk.’ We go for a trail walk in the dark with flashlights, and tell scary campfire stories, then my husband ‘gets lost’ and jumps out at the end to scare us! Then we build a fire and have the last round of s’mores for the season.” --Jacqueline Detsch

“Our family LOVES going to Mapleside Farms, enjoying all the festivities for the day, choosing our own pumpkins from the field, sipping warm cider, hayrides and corn mazes...then coming home, putting on warm jammies and cuddling up on the couch with a good Halloween storybook, or two...then carving our pumpkins as a group the next day while we play silly Halloween songs.” --Beth Ann

“We love Halloween because it is our son's birthday. So, not only does he get to dress up in his favorite costume, he gets to have birthday cake too. (I loved when he was little and we would dress up as a family...he was 2 years old and we were Disney's The Incredibles. That was awesome!!)” --Lily-Ann Gill 

“Our favorite activity is to ‘get ready!’ We have a system...pull out the decorations and take stock and get whatever we need, bake Halloween cookies while decorating, and carve the pumpkin. My son chooses a different face each year! We used to read a Halloween book or two to end the night, but now that he is 13, he chooses some scary or dark books to read throughout the month of October. It’s our favorite time of the year!” --Christine Lafferty

“We live in Alaska, so it’s always super cold (and sometimes snowy) on Halloween. Every year, we do a large bonfire at the end of our driveway, and kids can come trick-or-treat and warm up before moving to the next house! It’s always a hit in our neighborhood!” --Lindsay Hall

“Is it possible to pick just one favorite Halloween activity? Halloween is our family's favorite holiday! Our kids are little, so nothing gory, but we do love carving pumpkins while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. I guess if we had to pick a favorite, that would be it. We also love reading our Halloween books, sitting in front of the fire, roasting s'mores, having friends over, trick-or-treating... The list goes on and on.” --Jaszmine Gallego-Mayhew

“Helping my grandmother decorate her house! She always goes all out for Halloween!! The whole neighborhood loves it !!” --Samantha Bulman

“We love to dress up as a themed characters (Alice in Wonderland, zombies, Grease...etc.) and go trick-or-treating. We love to decorate and make things different every year. We also like to watch the 31 days of Halloween countdown and try to find as many spooky books as we can and read as a family together.” --Sammie Welker

“We love to craft all sorts of Halloween decorations! Between paper products, wreaths and brooms...the kids and I have a great time every year making lots of things to hang and give to others!” --Michelle Mcwhirter

“We love going to 'Boo in the Zoo' which is trick-or-treating at the zoo! Then on Halloween. we always trick-or-treat at Publix then around the neighborhood and we have a little party at home with themed-food and of course, always a Halloween story!” --Emily Goralczyk

“Our family loves visiting all of our area Halloween stores once a week in the month of October to see what new things they have and let our imaginations run wild with ideas for decorating and costumes.” --Trinity Castle

“We love making our own costumes that our child comes up with. We build them from his crazy imagination. This year we have an erupting volcano in the works!! Pumpkin patches, costumes and slowing life down and enjoying our time together, these are a few of my favorite Halloween traditions!!” --Amy Guinn Phillips

What are you family's favorite Halloween traditions? Let us know on the Scholastic Parents Facebook Page.

Raise a Reader Blog
Age 13
Age 12
Age 11
Age 10
Age 9
Age 8
Age 7
Age 6
Age 5
Age 4
Age 3
Age 2
Age 1
Infant
Holidays and Celebrations
Reading
Halloween
Holidays
Family Members