3 Halloween Alternatives to Trick-or-Treating

This year Halloween will look a little different thanks to COVID. We won’t be trick-or-treating, and the Switch Witch won’t be visiting. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be celebrating. Even though we won’t have an abundance of candy to get rid of, we’ve decided we’re still holding true to Halloween. That means candy. To keep your fun, candy-filled evening with your family this year, try these three Halloween alternatives to trick-or-treating that we’ll be doing.

3 Ways to Celebrate Halloween without Trick-or-Treating

1. Candy Hunt

It’s not Halloween if your kids aren’t collecting candy in their pails. So have them collect, just change the location. Instead of going house to house, our girls will be going bush to bush in our yard on a Halloween candy hunt. If you don’t have a yard you can hide candy in, no problem—move the candy hunt indoors. If you don’t feel like having Easter in October, then set up each room as a different “house” and let your kids go from room to room collecting their candy.

2. Candy Store Adventure

Turn trick-or-treating into a candy store adventure, and embrace the fact that you won’t end up with a bunch of candy you don’t like. Our girls were obviously disappointed about not having any trick-or-treat candy this year (to be honest, so was I), so I told them we’d go to the local candy store and they’d be able to pick out their own candy and get exactly what they wanted. My youngest and I are reading the Harry Potter series now, and she was thrilled to be able to pick Harry’s chocolate wand as one of her treats.

3. Candy-Filled Family Night

Instead of going to a friend’s house to trade and eat candy after trick-or-treating, have a family movie or game night (or maybe both!) while enjoying candy goodies. It’s not really Halloween if you don’t watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, is it?

Our Halloween this year will be a combination of all three. What makes it even more fun is the fact that we’re turning Halloween into more than just an evening. My girls were anticipating the candy store adventure so much that we ended up going yesterday—they just couldn’t wait. So even though we have a few days to go until it’s Halloween, ours has already started. And the anticipation will continue to grow until Saturday. Then they’ll find their chosen candy and finally get to enjoy it during our family night.

However you decide to spend your Halloween this year, stay safe and enjoy!