Halloween treats shouldn’t cost a fortune

We promote traditional games, rituals, recipes and DIY costumes over midterm break

With the Halloween midterm break nearly upon us, we have the following tips for value for money, family fun and games: 

• Ask the grandparents about the best Halloween games, rituals, recipes and stories from ‘the good old days’.  Get them to explain Apple Bobbing with floating apples in a basin of water where the aim is to fish them out using your teeth (helps to have goggles and towels on standby).   Or Snap Apple where an apple is hung by a string from a door frame and participants are required to bite the apple with their hands behind their back.  Or the Fortune Saucer where children are blindfolded and choose from three saucers to reveal their fortune with the saucer containing the ring indicating love and marriage; the one with water predicting travel and the saucer with soil forecasting wealth and land.  Ask them about traditional Halloween recipes like curly kale, mixed with potato and onion, with our without coins in tinfoil added for lucky family members to find?  Or home-made Barm Brack involving the soaking of raisins and sultanas in cold tea and adding flour, margarine and eggs etc.  And pumpkin soup of course, using any pumpkin leftovers.  Children will love to get involved and to sample all these recipes, which will take some of the focus off the sweets and chocolate.

• Plan the traditional trick or treat, door to door trail with neighbours.  Agree meeting point for the big night, start time and who supervises the trail of Halloween characters versus who stays at home to greet other scary house callers.  Children might finish with Halloween games in one of the homes, with a helping hand from everyone involved?  Much better than munching on too many sweets, while watching too much TV!

• Why not build a display of Halloween Art from preschool/school on the fridge or in the window?  And make DIY decorations to keep children happily engaged by drawing pumpkins, skeletons and witches to proudly hang in the window. Or what about pumpkin faces with candles to light up? Easy to do by just cutting off the top of the pumpkin, scooping out the flesh (saving for pumpkin soup) and cutting out jagged eyes, nose and mouth to create your very own character pumpkin.  Then insert a small candle into the hollow pumpkin and display in the window or outside in the garden.  This type of Halloween Art display can be the feature of a play date over the midterm.