Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance for families on future celebrations earlier this week, including Halloween.
In the document it states that Halloween activities like trick-or-treating is deemed high-risk for spreading viruses. Instead, the CDC is advising families to partake in low-risk activities at home such as pumpkin carving, outdoor scavenger hunts, virtual costume parades and contests, decorating the house, and to host movie nights with household members only.
At present, with additional restrictions in place in Dublin, essentially the capital is on lockdown in a bid to reduce rising positive cases of Covid-19 and if extended, trick-or-treating may not go-ahead. Right now, the optimist in me hopes that children of all ages will be able to hit their neighbourhoods safely in search of sweet treats like they have done for many years.
However if, and I mean IF, trick-or-treating is a no-go this Halloween there is a super alternative for families, and for those nervous about the annual tradition.
Do you remember the “Teddy Bear Hunt” game that went viral earlier this year? It involved putting little teddies on your window sill so when families were out on their evening stroll they were going on a bear hunt and could count all the soft toys they found in their estate.
Now a new trend is catching on for Halloween, and social media users are asking members of the public to paint, draw and colour in pictures of pumpkins, and to display them in their windows. Older kids may like to get creative and carve a pumpkin, placing them in their front windows for all to see.
Then later next month, when the kids are due to hit the streets, they can dress up to the nines in their favourite costume and wander around their estate and see how many pumpkins they can find.
But that’s not all, for each pumpkin little ones find, parents will pop a small sweet in the child’s bag so they can still build up their stash of sugar and won’t feel like they are missing out on trick-or-treating in the slightest.
I don’t know about you, but we love the idea here at FFHQ, and regardless of what happens next month, we hope everyone gets involved. Could you imagine the look on our young one's faces?