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With 2020 being what it is, I have been secretly thinking about Halloween for months. What will happen to the usual festivities of trick-or-treating, parties, haunted houses!? Many of these aren't conducive to social distancing guidelines (though I have heard many communities are putting out suggestions for safe trick-or-treating). And if you are trying to not engage in social activities because you're high risk or are in contact with someone who is high risk how will you keep the magic of Halloween a thing for your family?
If you have young kids It's likely they won't realize Halloween isn't the same, but your older kids and teenagers may be a little sad to miss out on the festivities. That's why I have put together this post of fun ways to celebrate Halloween at home in quarantine: Quaranween! Celebrating Halloween at Home in 2020
Three years ago I wrote a post about what you need for a perfect Halloween party. I think this would be a great place to start. Throw your own family Halloween party. On that post I give suggestions for treats, decor, costumes, and music for your party.
Halloween Food
Today I would add this fun spider candy dish as part of your decor, so easy to do but makes a spooky statement.
You could also include more than sweets at your family party and make the whole night a fun and spooky evening starting with dinner. Here's a list of yummy appetizers with a Halloween theme. And for dinner what could be more festive than a pumpkin themed dinner?! Lucky for you, Lindsey is the Pumpkin Queen and has made NUMEROUS pumpkin recipes for all tastebuds (pasta, chili, baked chicken, etc etc). You're sure to find one your family will love. Halloween Activities
What if I told you you don't have to give up trick-or-treating? Even when you're staying home. All you need is some decorations (the Dollar Tree is a great place for decor), costumes, candy, and however many doors you have in your house!
Both of my sisters have birthdays close to Halloween, and Madalynn especially loves the holiday. When she was younger, some of her birthday parties were Halloween themed. We would take the kids trick-or-treating around our house. The older kids and adults would be in costume behind the doors in our home and the kids would come knocking. It was fun for everyone. And I think your family could have fun with it too! Older kids could help decorate and create characters to greet the younger kids. If you don't have enough adults or teens to greet the trick or treaters at all the doors, try just decorating behind the door with a bowl of candy there to greet them. Wouldn't it be fun to have one of those bowls that reacts when you grab for the candy? Another riff on this would be to have your house turned into a haunted house. You can divide into teams and each take a room or space and try to make it spooky for people to walk through. If neither of those things seem appealing, try these ideas:
Quaranween
As you can see, my little family had fun with Quaranween this year and I hope you can use some of these ideas to have a fun Quaranween this year. And who knows maybe you will come up with some new traditions for your family to do every year!
How will you be celebrating this year?
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This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchased made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! We originally posted this wreath in September 2019, but thought we'd share it again as it is so cute, fun and easy to make. I'll add some new links to the Dollar Tree website with some fun things you can add to your wreath! Just because we're still in Covid quarantine fun times, doesn't mean we have to give up on decorating for our favorite holidays! Enjoy! Recently, when Maddy and I took a trip to DollarTree, we found so many spooky and idea inspiring products for Fall and specifically for Halloween! When I saw these sparkly, light-up owls, I knew that I wanted to put one on a wreath for my door. (The owls aren't available anymore but they do have cute jack-o-lanterns that light up! ) I started with this mesh ribbon in orange and purple. There is even instructions inside the label to use it for a wreath. I'll show you my way and how I blinged it out! Supplies: 1 Wire Wreath Form 4 rolls mesh decorative 1 package chenille stems items to decorate your wreath; 3 larger ones and some small spiders. 1 Glue gun and hot glue Black thread To begin, use pipe cleaners cut in half to form the mesh bows and attach them to the wreath. Click on the pictures below to see how I formed the bows. I alternated the orange and purple colors around the wreath to fill it out. The mesh poofs out really nicely to give a fuller effect. As you can see, I used 3 large items and then some small spiders to decorate the wreath. Besides the owl, I used:
The owl, the skull and the lantern all had their light switches on the bottom so that they are easy to switch on when I want the wreath to light up. I attached them with a glue gun, smooshing them down against the wire wreath form. Then, I also tied them on with black thread to add extra support. I simply glued on the spiders.
Et, VOILA! A fun and spooky wreath all ready for Halloween! It was inexpensive and looks pretty great if I say so myself! If you aren't into owls, skulls or lanterns, Dollar Tree has a ton of items to choose from! Let me know what you use!
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Two fun things for Fun Friday, and for a fun weekend! This is the weekend before Halloween. When Alicia shared pictures of my grandson designing his own jack-o-lantern, I had to include the picture in this post! He is such a sweet, good, handsome boy! And I can't forget smart and talented! I am not biased at all! She carved the pumpkin for him after this. I love his happy smile. Here in Phoenix, we have to wait until the last minute to carve pumpkins or the heat will make them get moldy too fast. (Then they look really spooky!) For those of you who live in cooler climates, like Alicia and her family do, have you carved your pumpkins yet? How detailed do you get? If you haven't carved one yet, this would be a great weekend for it and that would take some of the pressure off getting all of the Halloween things done this week.
Thing #2 was inspired by a gift from my friend, Rhonda. She loves to shop yard sales and last week she found this candy mold and thought of me.
She didn't think of me because I have a mustache. I don't. But, I teach the children aged 3-11 music in our church. Sometimes I use mustaches as a gimmick as I get them to sing. Knowing that, Rhonda thought of me when she saw these mustaches. I was so excited to think of something to do with the mold.
First, I thought of doing some kind of mints or fondant chocolates. Then, out of the blue a nickname for a mustache came to my mind. Have you ever heard of a mustache being called a cookie duster? That made me think of cookies, which led to the thought of cookie dough and I thought, "How about Cookie Dough Cookie Dusters?" And that is how this treat was born! If you don't have a friend to find you a mold like this at a yard sale, here and here are a couple of similar molds that I found on Amazon.
Cookie Dough Cookie Dusters
To make the egg-less cookie dough, I used this recipe from Simply Bakings. All I did differently was to leave out the chocolate chips. I felt like for the mustache mold, they would add too much bulk, so I decided to put a layer of chocolate on them instead. So, I melted chocolate chips to do that. Click the photos to get better directions:
Now, pop the tray into the freezer to harden the chocolate. When it is hard, take the tray out of the freezer and pop the mustaches out of the tray!
I wasn't patient enough to wait for the tray to be ready for another batch, so with the rest of the dough, I formed balls and dipped the top of them in chocolate. They are pretty sweet, too! Just not as cute as the Cookie Dough Cookie Dusters!
You can also find gluten free versions of cookie dough recipes as well, I just didn't use one of those this time.
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This week for What to Read Wednesday I’m recommending another author who has great mysteries and thrillers: Agatha Christie.
It’s hard to say what her most well known work was because her accomplishments include Hercule Poirot stories, Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders, and my personal favorite And Then There Were None.
nd Then There Were None is a perfect story to read around Halloween. It takes place in a big mansion, brings together strangers with questionable pasts, and a murderer no one can see picking off the 10 guests one by one.
And Then There Were None has many adaptations and parodies. You may feel like you’ve seen this done 1000 times in movies or books but Christie is the originator of this story and the original is worth a read. It’s a story that will send shivers down your spine and leave you guessing until the end to figure out who the murderer is. And if you like And Then There Were None, check out Christie’s other novels and short stories. You won’t be disappointed! The old movie, Ten Little Indians, was based on And Then There Were None. (And watch Clue. It was definitely inspired by Christie’s story but is more hilarious than scary).
More Movies Based on Agatha Christie Stories:
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
April 2024
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