Tips & Guidelines For a Safe Halloween!

Celebrating Halloween is going to be different this year, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Halloween and fall season come with fun and festive traditions like trick-or-treating and haunted houses, it's important to remember that many (if not most) of these activities come with the risk of spreading or contracting the coronavirus. Given that Halloween isn't canceled altogether (at least, depending on where you live), you can still celebrate in safe ways. But you will have to be a bit creative and flexible compared to what you may be used to. 


Host a virtual costume party
Dress, up, make costumes, or put on a crazy wig and invite your child’s friends and family to a virtual costume party using one of many popular video chat apps. Make it fun and incorporate a dance party, sing-along, or parade around the house.

Decorate and carve pumpkins
One of Halloween’s best traditions is decorating and carving pumpkins. This can also be a fun outdoor and socially distanced activity for you and the people in your social bubble. Or, host a pumpkin decorating contest virtually using a video chat app.

Set up a candy hide-and-seek
Hide individually wrapped candy throughout the house or yard, and let the kids go find it. Or, map out a scavenger hunt with clues to where you hid the candy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also released guidelines with helpful tips for staying safe this fall and Halloween.

High-risk activities to avoid this Halloween

The CDC cites the following activities as higher risk for spreading COVID-19 and recommends avoiding them:

• Participating in traditional trick-or-treating where treats are handed to children who go door to door
• Participating in trunk-or-treating, where treats are handed out from trunks of cars lined up
• Attending costume parties held indoors
• Going to an indoor haunted house where people may be crowded together and screaming
• Going on hayrides or tractor rides with people who are not in your household
• Traveling to a rural fall festival that is not in your community, especially if you live in an area with high community spread of COVID-19

Some lower-risk activities the CDC recommends include:

• Having a small-group, outdoor, open-air costume parade where people can maintain a distance of six feet from others
• Attending a costume party held outdoors where protective masks are used and people can remain more than six feet apart
• Going to an open-air, one-way, walk-through haunted forest where appropriate mask use is enforced, and people can remain more than six feet apart
• If screaming will likely occur, greater distancing is advised. The greater the distance, the lower the risk of spreading a respiratory virus
• Visiting pumpkin patches or orchards where people use hand sanitizer before touching pumpkins or picking apples, wearing masks is encouraged or enforced, and people are able to maintain social distancing
• Having an outdoor Halloween movie night with local family or friends, with people spaced at least six feet apart

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Remember, Halloween during the COVID-19 pandemic is a chance for you and your children to get creative, and maybe even invent some new traditions for your family! It's also a great opportunity to model flexibility and a positive spirit. If you're excited and make it fun, your kids will have fun, too.