Don't Let Covid-19 Ruin Halloween!

It must be a trick.

In 2020, we’re getting a long-awaited Saturday night Halloween, and it’s right in the middle of a pandemic!

Don’t let Covid-19 ruin the spookiest night of the year. You can have just as much fun at home or with careful socially distanced activities in your neighborhood (Just make sure your neighbors are in on it!).

With a little creativity, you can still have fun with minimal health risks:

• Wear a mask under your mask: No matter what you’re doing for Halloween, you need to maintain proper social distance. Wear an approved mask under your costume mask.

• Treats on the lawn/In the trunk: Put individually wrapped treats on a blanket on the lawn or a table on your driveway for socially distanced trick or treaters. OR, you can use cars to the same effect in parking lots!

• Costume parade: Once commonplace in elementary schools, these were mostly phased out. Bring them back to the neighborhood with a socially distanced theme!

• Outdoor parties: Food and drinks should be prepackaged or in single servings and hand sanitizer readily accessible. Set up to be social but still maintain proper distance.

• Stay outdoors: Pumpkin picking and corn mazes are lower risk if masks and social distancing are observed. NO hayrides!

• Think outside the box: Maybe a spooky movie marathon projected outside, or a Zoom dance party learning “Thriller,” “Time Warp,’ or other scary choreography.

• Activity stations: Set up in driveways or yards, include materials and “how-tos” on simple, spooky arts and crafts like paper bag ghosts and pipe cleaner spiders.

• You’ve been booed! A fun new trend. It’s like May Day, but you sneak up and leave treats on neighbors’ porches instead of flowers. A safe way to pull Halloween mischief!

Make Halloween festivities fun, safe, and healthy. You never know what might become a new Halloween tradition. And hey, Halloween is on Sunday in 2021. That’s almost as good!