6 fun ways to safely celebrate Halloween 2020 at home that kids will love

We are not letting the pandemic dampen our spirits. For fun ways to safely celebrate Halloween 2020 at home, we have some great family-friendly ideas that kids will love.

While Halloween is not something that has been commonly celebrated in Australia, it has picked up in popularity in recent years. And in light of the challenges (and stress) we are all faced with amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we are taking every opportunity to celebrate and bring a little fun into our home at the moment.

If you had grand plans to get outside with you kids and family to celebrate Halloween this year, you might find yourself in a literal ghost town thanks to COVID-19. While things might look a bit different, that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative and set something up at home for your kids (and maybe a few friends or the extended family). 

At our house, we conjured up some Halloween fun with spookily decorated rooms, fun dress-ups for the kids, a haunted house, trick or treating at home and even a spot of virtual fun.

Here’s our rundown of six fun ways to safely make celebrating Halloween 2020 at home something spooktacular that kids will love.

1. Trick or treating at home

While you can’t get outdoors, a great way to celebrate Halloween safely at home in 2020 is by setting up a trick or treating a home. Set things up almost like a treasure hunt with challenges, hidden treasure and even obstacles or riddles in each room to solve.

2. How to set up a haunted house at home

Another fun way to celebrate Halloween at home that kids will love, is by setting up a haunted house. Remember the good old haunted house at fun fairs? This is so easy to do at home. Theme each room something different and send the kids on an adventure. This one works really well if you rope in the extended family.

We had the dads manning each room and jumping out and scaring the kids or walking them through the space to uncover the haunted house secrets. They walked around the house and knocked on the door of one room at a time.

This idea also ties in well with trick or treating and a treasure hunt where the dads give out candy or lead the kids to treasure when they visit each room.

3. Halloween decoration ideas for different rooms at home

From huge spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns to hanging pumpkins and creepy skeletons, here are some fund ways to decorate the house for Halloween. There are so many affordable ways to transform your home in an instant. I sourced most of these fabulous items from Spotlight, Big W, Woolworths, Target and Kmart. Below and the rooms we went with. 

• Pumpkin room
• Witches rooms
• Vampires lair
• Skeleton room

4. How to host a good Halloween party

Hosting a good Halloween party is pretty easy – all it takes is some positivity, creativity, imagination, and party spirit from all of the adults to set-up and host something fun for little ones. Here are some items you might want to think about sourcing for a great Halloween party. 

• Treats
• Treat baskets/buckets
• Cotton for spiderwebs
• Strings of lights (even better if they are Halloween themed)
• Pumpkins
• Witch, skeleton and vampire masks and paraphernalia
• Skeleton decorations
• Pumpkin decorations
• Face paint
• Variety of kids and adult costumes
• Signs for theme and label each room
• Keep out tape
• Treat table decorations and serving dishes
• Slime
• Supermarket supplies to make Halloween recipes and treats (cupcakes are a big hit)

5. Halloween dress up ideas for 2020

• Skeletons – you can paint the design onto a simple black long sleeve top and pants.
• The good old witch – most stores have these for sale at an affordable price point.
• The bad fairy – you can just buy some black accessories and work with fairy pieces you (most likely) already own. 

6. How to host a virtual Halloween party at home

With COVID-19 stopping normal socialising in its tracks this year, it’s a good idea to think about how you can host a virtual Halloween party at home too. This is especially good if you want to loop in relatives that can’t travel, are vulnerable or if you are keeping things a bit more low-key this year. Here are some ideas for virtual Halloween parties at home.

• Host a Halloween themed trivia party
• Set up the laptop in the rooms within your haunted house and have the grandparents play characters as party of each room
• Simply set up a treats party table, pop on some Halloween/scary movies tunes and dial in all the relatives on Zoom and get them to set up the same thing at home and try your first kids/family-friends Halloween virtual disco at home