Our Non-Traditional Halloween
One thing that irritates me about Holidays is that they aren’t just a one day celebration. It has to last at least a month or it’s hardly worth mentioning. We don’t celebrate Christmas. We have to celebrate the whole Christmas season with endless parties, decorations, events, spending and gift giving and if you don’t subscribe to all of that then you feel like a Scrooge (which, of course, we already have tickets to see in December). It is mind boggling and much too complicated for me. For me a fun holiday is all about simplicity and spending time with friends and family but I do that every day of the year so why would I be interested in commercially driven holidays? Greed has taken beautiful Holy Days and turned them into ugly seasons of stress. They just keep getting bigger and more plastic (in more ways than one) as the years pass. Giant plastic Santa anyone? Got Debt?
Celebrating the fall season for us is going for a drive to see the colors in the upper mountains before they get all the way down to our neighborhood, going to a fun corn maze with piggy rides and hay slides, turning on our wood stove again, playing in the leaves, carving pumpkins at my Dad’s birthday and this year we had a party with friends on the 31st which happily had almost nothing to do with Halloween.
The only part of Halloween I don’t mind is the dressing up, as long as the costumes come from our dress up box and don’t cost any extra money or time. Speaking of costumes, if children learn through play then I think it matters what kind of dress ups they have. Getting the right kind of dress ups is something we are going to be working on this year. I’m not going to tell you what kind of dress ups are right for your family but I know what my children need. Think about what kind of games you want your children to play and get a few simple dress ups to go with them.
For over six years I’ve had a dream of having a big Halloween party every year on the 31st so I could say we didn’t need to go trick-or-treating; we were going to have fun with friends instead. We had one party and then I was pregnant and sick the next year and the next year we were building a house and the next year we were moving in and then we waited a few years till our sunroom was done so we would have room for lots of friends but I could have had a party any of those years if I had really wanted to. It wasn’t until this year when I got the idea to have a non-Halloween party that I got excited enough to do it.
On Friday our sunroom was still base camp for doors we have been sanding and staining so the children and I spent all day cleaning up that mess, dragging in a couple big area rugs to cover the brick floor and hanging up lights to make it fun. I wasn’t sure what to do for decorations because I didn’t want to spend any money or to waste paper or time making crafts. I finally got the idea for using Christmas lights and that with some pumpkins on the front porch was all we wanted or needed.
Simple.
On Saturday we got the rest of the house nice and clean and made the food: a pot of white bean and cauliflower soup, a pot of veggie chili, and a tray of veggies. Other people brought a pot of tortilla soup, corn bread, chips and salsa, pumpkin cookies and chocolate treats.
I only had one family that said they would come and that would have been fun enough but then we had three other families show up! Some children wore costumes and some didn’t. My children had games planned but they were too busy to play them. The younger children watched a movie part of the time while the older children played night games outside. I finally told them they could go to the three other houses on our lane to beg for candy. They got candy at two houses but the last house said they hadn’t had a single trick-or-treater in the eleven years they have lived here!
We never turned the lights on so we didn’t have any trick-or-treaters ourselves. Then we turned the lights on for everyone that was going home and at 9:30 someone rang the bell. Two moms were driving their little children around at that time of night! My children tried to give them broccoli but they didn’t want it for some reason. My plan was to hand out quarters if anyone came but they were gone by the time I got to the door. I’m sorry whoever you were!
After the older children got tired of night games they came in and my friend’s talented boys gave us a free piano concert. I was swing dancing with a ten year old at one point so you know we were having a good time.
I’m so pleased with how it all went and I’m looking forward to our Harvest Ball next year. I have five women who have signed up to help me plan it and everyone will be invited so put it on your calendar for October 30, (since the 31st is a Sunday) 2010. If you live in the area and you want to help with the planning send me an email and I’ll put you on the list.
What did you do for your non-traditional Halloween? Whether you did a little bit of Halloween or none of it please add your link. Let’s inspire each other to do something new and better next year!
P.S. I turned comments on for this one.
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November 2nd, 2009 at
For years we were the base camp for a halloween gathering before trick-or-treating with several of our friends and their kids. Our son’s diabetic condition changed all of that for us…We stil love dressing up and carving pumpkins, and doing all the fall festivities but now we turn off the lights and go out to dinner. This year it was dinner and a movie. Good times were had by all and nobody seemed to miss the sugar rush!
November 2nd, 2009 at
We celebrated by roasting marshmallows around the campfire. There was a full moon, coyotes howling in the hay fields…perfectly spooky. :0)
November 3rd, 2009 at
Leaves, just as long as kids have a pile of leaves to jump in..as your kids did is all you need,..I didn’t realize how great they are until we had to cut our old maple tree down oh we tried to save it but it was time the branches were going to fall….All the candy my kids got, the parties all of it they said they miss the leaves the most.. raking them, (that I would not have guessed) and jumping in them…Now I know leaf partys are the best ….:)
November 3rd, 2009 at
In four years, we have never received a trick or treater at our door (we’re in an apartment complex, so maybe that’s why). So, my husband and I decided to go out on a date and we went out for dinner. It was a good evening.
November 3rd, 2009 at
“For me a fun holiday is all about simplicity and spending time with friends and family but I do that every day of the year so why would I be interested in commercially driven holidays? Greed has taken beautiful Holy Days and turned them into ugly seasons of stress. They just keep getting bigger and more plastic (in more ways than one) as the years pass.”
I think it has happened to holy and unholy days. We’ll be doing the activity at my house next Halloween as well. I’m still thinking of what I want from it but I love finding others who don’t do the standard craziness.
November 3rd, 2009 at
We have tried a lot of things that we have enjoyed. We have done parties with apple bobbing, donuts on strings, and other old fashioned games with a showing of Legend of Sleepy Hollow. For several years we joined another family in taking soup to widows in our neighborhood and the kids got to give instead of beg. That was nice. This year we enjoyed a camping trip down south. We never stressed about candy or costumes though I do have a big dress up box that is available all year round. The cowboy stuff has been a big hit for a lot of years and a lot of boys.
November 3rd, 2009 at
I have never really been a fan of halloween. I cried every year as a kid, because I could never figure out what to wear. I hated being cold, or having to put a coat over my costume, and I hated scary stuff.
As an adult, add the candy, and the begging, and the question, “just how did Halloween get like this?” and it is all too much. I have not known how to bow out of it.
I tried to compromise by trick or treating for canned goods to give away to a food bank (but everyone wanted to give us candy as well, and at that point in time I didn’t know how to tell a three year old he couldn’t have it).
I’ve been able to limit things to our church party the last few years, but this year, somehow I got lured into taking my family to a friend’s, and things just did not go well. I just will not do it again. I don’t get halloween. I get the fun of dressing up. I get the fun of hanging out. I don’t get the fun of dentist bills, or bad behaving children, or children crying and screaming because they didn’t get the candy they wanted…
November 3rd, 2009 at
Several years ago, we gave our kids the option of EITHER trick-or-treating OR attending our church’s halloween party with trunk-or-treating. They chose the party, so that’s all we do. I keep it really low stress, by pulling out the dressup boxes a week or two beforehand and just standing back to see what they come up with. The older ones are getting to where they want to make a cape or something, but I let them know that it is up to them, and they have a blast doing it! Also, this year instead of handing out candy, we rented a cotton candy machine and handed out cotton candy. It was a HUGE hit! Even the adults came around reminising about when they were young. Maybe we’ll do it again next year….maybe.
November 3rd, 2009 at
We do absolutely nothing for Halloween and LOVE it! We turn off all our lights, go down to our basement, and make crafts. It is a fun night since it gets us all together. We don’t worry about trick-or-treaters coming to our house since all the lights are off. After crafts, we pick a game or movie or both to watch/play and just have a great family night.
November 3rd, 2009 at
I have to say, we love Halloween! The kids love thinking of what they want to be, and we just have a fun time all together. Yes, we get gobs of unneeded candy, but we have so much fun getting it. We hook up a trailer behind the 4-wheeler, put a few hay bales on and go through the neighborhood. I got a phone call from our cousins asking if we were taking the 4-wheeler – they wanted to come with us too. It’s something we all look forward to, and will give us many lasting memories. The parties sound fun, but this is what we love to do!
Lara says: You’ve taken trick-or-treating to a whole new level! Thanks for sticking up for the “other” side!
November 3rd, 2009 at
2 days after Halloween we have a “candy fairy” who comes to our house. The kids put their candy on the front porch when they go to school and when they get home from school there is money or a small toy in its place. The kids seem to love this surprise and don’t mind losing their candy.
November 4th, 2009 at
we do nothing, and love it! This year we had sick kids and a hubby who had to work….so when I say nothing I mean nothing!
November 4th, 2009 at
We had a HUGE party the day before Halloween. My younger girls had always wanted to have a big party and this year we finally did it. We had tons of food, we danced, we played cards, we were silly, and we had a blast. We had a marshmallow roast planned, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained all day and night.
On Halloween, the girls did not trick-or-treat. We stayed home and watched movies. The weather was still messy and rainy, so we didn’t get as many kids as we normally do. We did take a drive around our neighborhood, then came home and turned off our lights and snuggled on the couch. I thought it was pretty awesome as I have always detested trick-or-treating with my kids.
November 4th, 2009 at
I love everything about Halloween, the costumes, the pumpkins and especially all the little kids in the neighborhood so excited to spin around and show off their costumes. I think there is something so cozy and neighborhoody (is that even a word?) about the tradition of going from house to house. As a kid I always loved the fact that there was this ONE special day when you got to ring doorbells uninvited.
November 5th, 2009 at
This year we went to our church trunk-or-treat on Halloween, but we had decided we weren’t going to keep ANY of the candy for ourselves. We made cute bags with some relatively healthy sesame honey candy we’d made ourselves and the kids snacked on that through the night. At the end of the night we pooled all the candy, put it in a flat-rate box, and mailed it to my husband in Afghanistan to give to the National Police’s children. Last year I bought whatever candy my kids would sell me, but this worked much better. The kids were satisfied with the fun treats we made ourselves, and they felt like they were actually serving someone.
November 6th, 2009 at
I wish I lived close. Your party sounds like a blast!
Our subdivision had a Halloween party on the Sunday afternoon prior. We didn’t go. The house where it was going to be was decked out so creepy. We drove by at night and they kept adding things and adding things. I don’t know how they slept at night! There were things hanging from their second floor foyer window that were something you’d see in a horror movie, and lights flashed in every window once it got dark. Their yard and the one next door were completely decked out. I’ve never seen anything like it.
We attended a friend’s Reformation Party for the second year. I linked it up.
November 10th, 2009 at
I love all of the ideas posted here.
It makes me think of a fun thing my friends and I used to do when we were teenagers. We still wanted to dress up and go trick-or-treating, but we were too old to do it. So we bought bags of candy, dressed up and went door to door. When the adults answered the door they reacted with a “Hey, you guys are too old.” That’s when we would put the candy in the bowls they stretched out to us. The “trick” or treat was on them!