7 Ways to have fun at Halloween without Trick or Treating

Halloween is fast approaching and lots of my friends and family are getting excited about decorating their houses and taking their kids out trick or treating.

I however am a bit of a Halloween Scrooge 🤣 I have nothing against people who do celebrate it, I just never celebrated it growing up and have always found the concept of knocking on people's doors and asking for sweets a bit odd.

Since becoming a mum I have had to start being a bit more creative in finding ways to celebrate Halloween without the trick-or-treating bit ( funnily enough my children don’t enjoy sitting in complete darkness for hours in the house trying to make trick-or-treaters think we aren’t home, which is how I spent previous years!).

Here are some ways Halloween can still be fun (and in some cases still end up with lots of treats) without the trick or treating.

1. Have a Halloween party.

If you have friends that aren’t keen on trick or treating either, get together and have a party. There are lots of fun Halloween-themed games you can play and treats you can make to make it lots of fun.

2. Have a Halloween scavenger hunt at home.

My children LOVE a scavenger hunt, so I use this option for most events (like birthdays and Easter). You can hide lots of treats around your house and then either send children off to find them, or you could write out clues for where each treat is hidden.

3. Try trick or treating within your house.

If your children love the idea of trick or treating, why not try some role-play at home? You can use their toys and hide them in cupboards, playhouses, or behind any doors, then send your children around the house knocking on doors to find the treats. To make this extra fun you could leave some cards with each toy asking your child to perform a trick to get their sweets. Tricks will vary on the age of the child but it could be to sing a song, do 10 star jumps, answer a maths question or any other challenge of your choosing. My children love it when I include their toys in activities like this.

4. Decorate Pumpkins

You can still have lots of fun decorating your house and Pumpkins are a great place to start! You can have a competition to see who can create the best pumpkin and put candles in to go in your garden.

5. Have a face painting competition

If you are feeling brave why not let your children attempt to create a spooky character on each other using face paints? Children love the opportunity to be creative and do things that normally only the grown-ups get to do. You can let them freestyle or there are some great YouTube tutorials you can follow.

6. Go out 

If you live in an area where there are likely to be lots of trick-or-treaters coming to your door and you aren’t comfortable with that, go out! You can still get dressed up in your Halloween outfits but maybe you could go to the cinema or bowling instead. Using a distraction like this can be handy as you are removed from seeing it.

7. Embrace it from the other side 

Maybe you don’t want to go trick-or-treating yourself, but you don’t mind trick-or-treaters coming to you. You can still get dressed up, decorate the front of your house (so trick-or-treaters know to come to you), get in lots of sweets and make it a fun thing to see all the people who come to your door.

As you can see there are still lots of options to make Halloween fun without needing to go out trick or treating. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have the best time