Halloween as a kid was very exciting. Dressing up in scary costumes, staying up late, making lanterns, and gorging on the haul of treats collected. Living in a neighbourhood full of kids its obligatory to get involved again. The shops are full of cheap plastic masks, costumes and accessories at this time of year. But there are great ways of creating a truly green halloween (and also staying on track with the Salvos ‘Buy Nothing New Month’).
We’ve been putting our heads together to come up with ideas on how to have an eco-friendly halloween and to finish off October having bought nothing new. Here’s the summary.
- Forget plastic lanterns, go for the real deal and carve up a pumpkin lantern or if you can find a big enough one use a more traditional swede or turnip. Use the pumpkin to make pumpkin pie or pumpkin soup and the lamp can go in the compost bin afterwards.
- For costumes rent them or get creative with stitching or scissoring. Use an old sheet or reassign some old clothes.
- The parents will love you for it but the kids might not – giving fruit as the treat instead of chocolate and sweets. This will avoid wrappers and waste. Or make some ghoulish cup cakes, or toffee apples to hand out when the hoards come trick or treating.
- Put some candles on the porch or verandah instead of leaving the outside lights on.
- Give the kids recyclable bags to carry their haul.
Great halloween games for the kids:
As well as the typical party games, limbo, pass the parcel, hula hoop, musical statues etc try these.
Ghastly lucky dip. Put potato peel or something similar in a bucket along with some items/prizes and get the kids to delve their hands into it to find them.
Apple bobbing. A bowl full of water with apples bobbing around in them. Kids have to try and take bites out of the apples without using their hands. Or apples hanging on a string, again you have to try and eat the apples which are dangled in front of you without using your hands.
