Celebrating Halloween with young children

Celebrating Halloween has definitely changed from when I was little! We had no build up to Halloween, no shops full of themed food, decorations and costumes. All that happened was on Halloween evening we shut all the curtains, and ignored the door bell if it rang. I don't ever remember dressing up myself or taking part in any kind of Halloween themed activity.

These days you can't avoid Halloween, and it's become a really fun celebration. There are so many things that you can do with little ones, and so I thought I'd share some ideas.

Staying at home

When my children were younger we always had Halloween fun at home. I would do a few crafts with them, like toilet roll tube Halloween creatures, and we had some hand-me-down costumes that I put them in. There are lots of different ways that you can teach children how to make a monster, and they don't have to be at all scary. There are also lots of alternative Halloween ideas which don't involve leaving the house.

Related post - Hama bead crafts for Halloween

When the children were a bit bigger I organised a small Halloween party at home. If you want to really impress them you can find lots of Halloween decorating tips here, and the shops are full of creepy accessories. I kept the food simple with some Halloween themed cakes and biscuits but you can really go to town and there are some fab ideas for Halloween food, like these awesome witch fingers.

Going out Trick or Treating

I was always totally against the idea of taking the children out trick or treating until we moved to a new estate and saw what a big deal it was. Hundreds of children around here go out, supervised by their parents, and lots of houses make a real effort to join in. People really welcome the children with some amazing and creative decorations, and people are quite happy to ignore the houses that don't want to take part.

Celebrating further afield

Many local attractions will have some kind of special activities going on for Halloween. The big theme parks run events that last for weeks, like Legoland Halloween, and are very popular. A few years ago we were lucky enough to be able to go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World Resort in Florida and it was fantastic. But if you can't get that far there's bound to be a local farm or school which have something going on - even our gym is hosting a Halloween party!

I hope that I've whetted your appetite for some Halloween fun this year! If you are still looking for some more inspiration, you might enjoy this A-Z of Halloween with even more craft and recipe ideas.