Simple Halloween Party Ideas
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We don’t really do parties. And we don’t really do Halloween. So you might be wondering what’s there to talk about in a post about Halloween parties if we don’t do either. Well here’s the story….
Before we had our little guy, we really weren’t into doing much for holidays. We’d make ourselves a nice meal, sometimes have a get-together with family, but we just weren’t into doing much except for laying around on our day off.
As I’m sure most of you know, things change when you have a little one. You may feel more obligated to do things and participate in things that you didn’t before. Not saying that we feel obligated to do more things, but ever since Farmer Boy came into our lives, I feel like I WANT to do more things, more fun for him. But of course, at the same time I want to keep it simple, since simple living is the only lifestyle we will ever know.
Ok so second….we don’t do Halloween. I just don’t get into the holiday with scaring people and creepiness. Could just be me, and I’m not saying there isn’t anything wrong with it, it’s just not for us. But I do love fall and I figured a fall party would be fun, or a “Un-Halloween” party, at home, simple living style. So here are some of the simple Halloween party ideas that we came up with and plan on doing.
Party Decor
In the spirit of keeping it simple (and not wanting much to clean up afterwards) we will decorate with a few small gourds and mini pumpkins from the family garden. No need to spend money on decor that is just going to get tossed anyways, we will use what we have and that will be good enough!
Party Foods
No need for junk food in our house, but fun fall flavored goodies will be perfect. I’m planning on making Easy Homemade Caramel Sauce to go with sliced apples and some yummy Easy Pumpkin Bread. (Although I’ll make the bread gluten and dairy free for our little guy to enjoy) Both of those items are easy to make and should provide us with plenty to munch on for the evening. For a drink we will simply heat up some apple juice on the stove and make some Mulled Apple Cider.
Party Activities
Keeping our party simple means no crazy activities and since we are having fun for un-Halloween, it means no creepy games. I’m thinking we will take a nice walk together as a family and see who can find the prettiest fall leaf. Each of us can collect at least 1 leaf that we deem as the prettiest and once we get them home, I’m going to take and put them in between 2 layers of contact paper and put them in our scrapbook. (I’m NOT a scrapbooker, that’s as fancy as it gets! 🙂 )
Another activity that would be fun to do if you guy was a little older would be to take some of my yarn scraps and wrap them around pinecones, then hang them outside for the birds to build nests from. Maybe we will do that next year.
And since our guy is young, he will enjoy these free Fall coloring pages that I will print off and he can have fun with. Then mommy will have all new “fall decor” to hang up on her fridge!
Any of these ideas would work great, especially if you are on a budget since they cost little to nothing.
Party Favors
My little guy is too young to know it yet but once he realizes that other kids are getting candy and other treats on this “holiday” he may feel left out. So we will stick with a non-food fun item that we can actually use like these Little Dover Sticker Activity Books. They are less than $1.50 each and he can have them to play with until the stickiness wears out. Plus they contain no sugar! We’ve also decided in the future that if he gets candy gifts from family or friends for any holiday, we will take him to donate them to the local food bank. (He can’t eat them anyway because of his allergies but we think it will be a great way to teach him young how to give back! 🙂 )
So that will be our “party”! I’m excited for a theme night and I think it will be a fun break from the norm for us. I’ve often wondered how parties can fit well into the simple living lifestyle (since they tend to be complicated and require money and all kinds of stress!) but a “party” like this is much more up my alley!
Do you have any kind of fall party? What are some simple Halloween party ideas that you would add to this list?
You know, Halloween does not have to be scary. The one thing my adult children say now is how much they regret not participating in Halloween. There really can be a nice in between.
We don’t do halloween, either.
I loved your ideas for the party. Especially the leaf game.
I always have felt that Halloween is about feeding our imaginations. Playing make believe is something that all young kids do, but it is equally important for older children and adults to join in occasionally as well. It doesn’t have to be morbid or involve scaring people but it can be a lot of healthy fun for the while family.
What a great post. I think we must all decided how to celebrate the holiday according to what we know is the best for our family. You have some great ideas and I love the caramel dip. Also, when my daughter was little, we used to always use the Dover books, so inexpensive and so wonderful!
Hello,
I just found your pages today. So excited!! We use to take our kids trick or treating when they were young.. But now they are older and we just like to watch the little ones that come to our door. We live in the city now, but are working on getting moved to our own homestead.
Since our family loves knowledge we like to do trivia for holidays. (Halloween would be trivia about that holiday ect)
Keep up the good work!!
Kristean
I love Fall parties! These are great ideas. Since reformation day falls on the same day as Halloween, I’m hoping to do something very in-Halloween with the kids – but I’m so lame I haven made any plans yet. 😛
One thing my hubby showed me was a TRICK or Treat idea. We all love caramel apples. So make some of these but also include some Caramel dipped onions. No one knows till they take a bite and teens love being had. :D. Yes, I am devious. Can’t help myself 😀
That sounds like something my hubby would do!
My son is allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, eggs wheat and corn. We tackle Halloween by trading him his candy for candy he can eat at sweetie time-around 4pm. We also let him help make a few special treats for sweetie time. He can have one sweetie a day which can be three cookies, one cupcake, 5 pieces of candy, or just a reasonable amount of the sweetie of his choice. We try a little of everything in moderation. Once we made wowbutter cookies. He loved those and homemade lollipops. We also let him and his non allergic sister decorate with things they made themselves. Their favorites are balloon ghosts. They take small balloons, blow them up, tape them to garden stakes, drape them with the paper that comes with our food from amazon, tie a bow to keep the paper on the balloon. Putting a little glue on top of the balloon before putting the paper on helps keep it in place better. Then they draw eyes and mouths with markers and they are done.
Hi there! Been reading here for a month. Such a genuinely sweet website with so much helpful info. I’m starting most of my mornings now with you because of your sweet heart and love of the Little House books. Thank you for all you do here and sharing your world.
We don’t do Halloween, but we always do Fall! We have Pumpkin Day with pumpkin games and a full Pumpkin-themed meal that is planned and prepared by even the youngest. Last year we had Pumpkin Pasta (a wonderful, Italian-spiced dish) that all ages loved, Pumpkin Biscuits, and a Dessert Pumpkin Cookie Pizza. I was a preschool teacher/director for over 30 years and just can’t get all the fall fun out of my system! We are a multi-generational household now with 9 of us, ranging in age from 4 to 59. While there are always challenges, there is still a lot of fun around here. Now I’ll have to get busy planning this year’s big event. I love getting new ideas! Thank you again for such a sweet place to visit.
Oops! Not sure if I put Hen or Chicken for my screen name. I definitely meant to put Hen! Please change it if I accidently put Chicken and don’t post this comment.
I was in too big of a hurry to join in the fun, so I might have made a mistake. Thanks!
We do Fall Fest, even at church (or, especially at church). We are an agricultural community; by the time the crops are in and the winter food supply is canned, dried, frozen, etc., we are ready for some downtime! Why do you think they used to have old-timey barn dances? Hoe downs? Harvest festivals? It was not to follow after some pagan tradition; it was to unwind after working so hard for so long. “Hey, come in! Play with us! You’ve earned it!”.
Unfortunately, we do provide candy for the kids, but that’s not my decision. We also make sure there are choices – naturally sweetened or not at all sweetened treats, things that are naturally sweet enough with no added sugars, etc. – something for everyone.
Preventing children from sharing in the fun of peers is, in my opinion, going to backfire at some point in time. I’ve seen it happen, even in my own family. Just offer “acceptable” alternatives, and make it as fun as possible.
When my children were small, I did allow “Halloween” kind of parties (we put them on), but I did NOT allow creepy, ghoulish, occultic things – just silly, fun stuff. Our adult kids speak of those times with pleasant memories. Getting ready was a huge part of the fun, and the kids got to help – I decorate cakes, so we decorated all kinds of food with fun Fall themes.
I remember a church we belonged to years ago that had a “Fall Fest and Costume Party”; we specifically stated, “no witches, goblins, ghouls, Freddies, or any frightening or occultic-themed costumes, please”. The only one to show up in such a costume was a mother who brought her children! A witch. Guess that mom didn’t read the paperwork.
Mostly, though, we just provide the fun – and I look forward to it every year, as a grandmother!
HAPPY FALL, Y’ALL!!
We don’t do halloween either….
After our first child was born my husband & I did a little research into some of the symbols (ie: the black cat) seen this time of year & the history behind the holiday & decided halloween wasn’t a good fit for our family. Despite the fact that some of our friends & cousins ‘do’ halloween, our children, who are now 11 years & under, don’t seem to mind since they have candy on a semi-regular basis (birthday parties, bank stops, grandparents, etc) & we allow “dress up” anytime they’d like, year round. Next week we’ll add Thanksgiving decorations to the fall ones we already have up. We’ll start talking about what we’re excited about the most with seeing our out of town families & other Thanksgiving traditions we enjoy. We may get a few trick or treaters, but no one seems to care if we politely tell them we don’t have any candy.
When our children grow up they’ll have a lot of decisions to make for their own families. And halloween will be one of many that they thoughtfully consider. Hopefully you will too.
I love fall….
I agree that people get carried away with holidays and parties, we should all remember that as young kids, they play with the boxes and not so much the toys! My kds love Halloween, but this is the first year they want the yard to look a little scary, they are 14 and 13. We keep Halloween fun, it’s a fun holiday, a day where you can pretend to be anything you like! We’ll keep our ‘scary’ decorations very simple, and almost free as well. My 13 yr. old daughter came up with the idea to take our spent sunflower stalks and stake them along our front walkway and near the front porch and string some clear lights in them (we already have them for Christmas, and my outdoor garden ‘room’ for the summer), and she wants to get some spent coneflower stem and flowerheads and crumble them up a bit and lay them near the walkway so there will be a little ‘crunchy’ sound when the kids come for trick or treat. They are looking for the ‘old abandoned look’ more than ‘scary’, but they have fun with it. I guess you just have to go with what works for your family! They get bombarded with candy too, we seperate it, then bag it up, give some away, and put some in the freezer for snacks throughout the winter. I do that with other holiday candy too. 🙂
Great ideas. I know quite a few families that celebrate Fall Harvest not Halloween. We do trick or treat and try to attend nature festivals and local kid friendly events.
It is very true that having little ones around makes you want to celebrate the holidays. I also don’t like having junk food around, so the mulled apple cider and homemade caramels sound delicious! I will be trying those soon!
If someone young in the family has sensory processing difficulties, large parties don’t work well. Particularly if there is a lot of sound and activity in a large room. I have had personal experience with this. An outdoor activity sound great. As your child grows, you can invite one new friend a year to join you and your son in these activities. See how it goes. Sounds like your are feeling blessed and doing all the right things for your son! Blessings,
I love Halloween, but hate the candy! So we do the Sugar Sprite at our house. We tell a little story about how the birds and hibernating critters need a little extra food for the long winter ahead, so we writing a note to the Sugar Sprite and put our candy in a basket before bed. In the morning the Sugar Sprite has taken the candy away and left behind a little treasure, maybe an old bird’s nest, or a special stone, or a sachet of sweet smelling herbs, or whatever. My kids love it!
Fun! We don’t do Halloween Candy but whenever we go to a parade or some event with a lot of candy we allow our boys to “trade” the candy in for some small prize instead. They always get excited about this!