Halloween is not my favourite holiday - but here's how I get stuck in anyhow!

I AM fully ready to admit I am not that keen on Halloween. I don’t even really understand why myself, because on any given day I am desperately trying to get through the mountain of creative thoughts coursing through my brain. In theory, it should be a great opportunity to get my teeth stuck into an artistic endeavour, but I just can’t seem to raise the enthusiasm for it.

The girls love it though, so I am dragged into the creative process whether I like it or not.

Take, for example, decorating, I know all our social media feeds are different, but since August I feel like I have been bombarded with ‘fall décor’ ideas and ‘spooky snack’ inspiration so by the end of September I am fed up of it.

I am fully aware that those who are not that keen on Christmas could lay claim to the same timeline of upset from September onwards, but I am not here to bash Christmas, I’m just waiting for Halloween to get out of the way.

I digress – the decorating is something I embrace with reluctance, my husband loathes, and the girls adore, so there is a wide range of tastes to try and please when it comes to creating a spooky vibe around the house. We have finally settled on something that seems to work well for everyone. A few years ago, I went to Woodies and bought some decent decorations – hanging ghosts, a dancing skeleton, witches in cauldrons, witches on brooms and pumpkin statues. I wheel these out every year now and I put them up in the hall only. 

This way the girls have a euphoric hit of Halloween décor when they come home and move through the house, but there is escapism when you enter the kitchen or sitting room because the decorating is confined to the on place. It also makes the setting up and the cleaning up easy too.

I feel like Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween if you didn’t do some of arts and crafts with the kids. Last year we made card bats, I cut a template on the Cricut and the girls did used traced the template and cut out the shapes. Those worked out really nicely and I packed them up carefully so they are perfect to use again this year, and they do look impressive on the windows and the wall in the hall.

This year, we decided to give sewing a go so we made some small velvet pumpkins. It was a really simple project; I got the fabric in Aldi and we used plates to cut out the different sizes. We used a needle and thread to sew up the top of pumpkin (which even my eight-year-old managed) and stuffed it with the inside of an old pillow. To top it off, I picked some branches from the garden and cut them into butts for the stem which we hot glued to the top. Simple, and they look very elegant on the mantlepiece.

When it comes to costumes, a lot of thought goes into it on the girls’ behalf. I encourage them to start thinking about their costumes early, firstly to allow time for the numerous changes of heart they go through, and secondly, so that when they do decide on a costume I have time to actually go and get whatever I might need. I have been that mother on the morning of the school holidays trying to rustle up a costume in a panic before herding them out the door. This year (well, today anyway) we have a dead artist, Hermione, a dead schoolgirl and a cat.

A great tip I have picked up over the years is to keep an eye out for the large pots of Snazaroo face paint and invest if you see it on offer, or pick up a couple at a time and build up your collection. It is by far the best face paint there is and it lasts really well.

I wish I could offer some advice on how best to deal with the deluge of treats kids get after trick or treating but it is a tricky one (pardon the pun!). At least at Easter left-over chocolate is easy to use up in baking, but I find the pure sugary, sticky stuff they tend to gather at Halloween is hard to make use of and there is no way I would let them eat all that they get.

That said, I am always torn because it goes against my nature to throw it away. I read a very timely press release from the Dental Health Foundation that advised parents to encourage children to drink plenty of tap water with fluoride when consuming candy, as the water washes away the sugar and the fluoride helps repair the teeth.

It also advised parents not to encourage children to rinse their mouth after brushing their teeth as it washes away the protective fluoride off the teeth, I never knew that, so it is true what they say – every day is a school day!