looking for ideas for a *complicated* Halloween handout 🎃
ok, here’s a fun one! i suspect this group will have some good suggestions.
we are moving temporarily for the holidays, and we’ll be in our new place for Halloween. i’m excited because i think we’ll get a lot of trick-or-treat traffic — our current house gets almost none!
to introduce ourselves to the new neighbors, i want to do a really fun Halloween hand out, something a little more involved than the typical candy bowl. as a kid, i remember that every once in a while i’d find a house that was handing out hot cider, hot dogs, fun stuff like that — and i want to give it a try this year!
i also suspect that i’m probably a little crazy for trying to pull this off. any suggestions or ideas for me?
- ritu—ooodeah… I guess I’m signing up for this too…
14 answers
EMucha3853
Fun! Good luck! We have a nacho cheese machine specifically to do nachos every Halloween — we do it mad scientist style and put different salsas and sauces in beakers. We have mixed responses among young kids, but age 5/6 and up seem to love it (and all the grownups, which was part of our target audience). We have a friend who fries apple cider donuts and the smell of the deep fryer draws the whole neighborhood — a better crowd pleaser for all ages, for sure, but a lot of work. And everyone makes sure to go to the house in our neighborhood that has full-size candy — but it’s not just that. They make a little display each year that shows what kind of candy they have and they let every kid pick two. If it was a little warmer where I live, I’d consider a soft-serve machine with fun toppings! Last year we did around 100 trays, which was pretty steady. I’ve also seen Fry Bread with jam and hallo”wieners.” I know you’ll find something fun!
- jon—amazing! what sort of things do they put on the candy display?
- EMucha—They just get a board and literally attach each of the candy bar types to it and write/stencil the name next to it. The board is probably 3 feet tall and has 8 types of candy.
- jon—oh cool, kind of like a “menu”. i like that idea!
rachel8302
Our favorite Halloween ones we’ve seen and/or done:
Witch’s brew: we got the big huge caldron, apple cider, and dry ice. So it looks spooky and fun. I dressed up as a witch and scooped out apple cider for kids as they came by. You do need to put in little bits of dry ice on a pretty frequent basis to make it work, and I’d suggest gloves or tongs to handle them. So a little more complicated, but super fun!
S’mores: In one of our old neighborhoods, there was a family that had one of those little portable fire pits, with roasting sticks, marshmallows, and keebler fudge cookies. You stopped and roasted a marshmallow for a little s’mores treat. That was awesome!
Candy delivery slide: During the pandemic, there was a guy who build (with half round pipes and a bucket at the bottom) a “slide” for the candy. He stood up on a platform with his candy basket and there was a big sign that showed all the types of candy. Kind of like @EMucha’s suggestion of a menu. You’d call out your type to him, and he’d slide it down the slide for you to pick up from the basket. It was amazing, and now he does it every year for fun.
Popcorn or cotton candy: In our current neighborhood there is one family with a popcorn machine and they hand out little bags of popcorn to munch on as you trick or treat. I think you could also do this with a cotton candy machine!
- jon—whoa these are great! the dry ice cider sounds so cool.
- sarahs—We do dry ice cider with our family every Halloween and the kids love it!
- sarahs2402
These are all such fun ideas! One thing I’ve done with elementary kiddos at school parties is to make a punch-a-bunch like on price is right. There’s lots of ways to do this, but I hot glued solo cups on a foam board (I did mine in the shape of a heart for a valentines class party, but you could do a pumpkin) and the put a treat or temporary tattoo or whatever in the cups, cover with a square of tissue paper (I used red, pink and white with hearts, but you could use orange and black), and secure each with a rubber band around the opening of the cup. The kids love punching through the tissue paper to see what surprise they get.
- jon—love this idea!
- ashesk50
I followed a tradition my dad started when I was a kid. He would pull the grill out to the front yard and do hot dogs! Yes it took more work and sitting outside. It became a great tradition that all the neighbors would look forward to. We always had a huge group of parents hanging at our house while the kids trick or treated the houses on the street. Lots of friendships were created from this tradition. We also had friends that played Halloween movies projected on their garage and served hot chocolate! That was so fun!
- jon—oh wow! i don’t think i’ve seen anyone do movies on the garage; what a great idea.