Candied Apples, Cookies and Cupcakes: Making candied apples, themed cupcakes and caramel popcorn to serve at a Halloween party make for a lot of smiles. Guests will love the homemade treats and the family will have loads of fun in the kitchen decorating everything. Gingerbread is traditionally a Christmas cookie, but it is fantastic for making ghost-shaped cookies and edible haunted houses. The caramel used for candied apples is the same caramel used for caramel popcorn, so you can make both with half the work.
Costume Fun for Everyone: The kids will have a fantastic time dressing up and going trick-or-treating, but what about the older teenagers and adults? Why wear regular clothes when you take the little ones around to gather up small hoards of candy from the generous neighbors when you can dress up too? A good costume is hard to find, so rather than spending endless hours searching from store to store, check out Price grabber list of Halloween Costumes. It will provide tons of inspiration and costume ideas for every budget.
Halloween Parties: Creating a tradition around having Halloween parties is one that almost everyone can get on board with. Have an open house for the whole neighborhood and invite family and friends. Make sure to encourage costumes! Make homemade treats, have a bobbing barrel or have guests contribute to the food and drink in a potluck fashion.
Jack-o-Lanterns for the Whole Family: Some families carve one huge pumpkin each year, but is also fun to get one smaller pumpkin for each family member. Going to a local pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins for the jack-o-lanterns straight off the vine is a fun activity. While not as much of an adventure, if there is no local pumpkin patch, letting each person pick out a pumpkin at the grocery store makes the jack-o-lantern carving experience better. Pick an overall theme for the designs or let each person decide what to carve.
Neighborhood Haunted House: Every neighborhood can use a haunted house on Halloween. Part of the holiday is to enjoy the rush of fear or laugh at the silliness of overtly fake horror. Even if you don’t decorate the entire house for the neighbors to do a walk-through, you can create a terrifying experience right on at the front door. Use the entryway to its full advantage and apply webbing, fake creepy-crawly insects and dress the family pet up to play a part. Haunted houses or, at least, haunted porches, are entertaining for the whole neighborhood.
Take all of these ideas and create a family festival tradition or pick a couple and run wild with them. Halloween is about having fun and courting the terrifyingly horrific. Not only are they fun for the family, but some of them can help encourage a strong sense of community!
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