October 31 marks Halloween—complete with candy, costumes and a bit of spookiness. While the annual celebration is all about fun, there’s always room to add some meaning. We have come up with five ways to insert a bit of good doing into the festivities, and perhaps even create some new traditions along the way. Feel free to share some of your own Halloween traditions with us in the comments below. Trick-or-treat!
1. Start a new tradition
Halloween is an exciting night filled with trick-or-treating and fun costume parties, but it can also serve as a good time to spend some quality time with your loved ones. A pre-Halloween meal with healthy fixings can become a great new tradition to kick off the revelry. Eating nutritious foods before heading out for the night will fill your kiddos up and leave less room for sugary candy.
2. Costumes: Go DIY
Dressing up is what makes Halloween so fun—for kids and adults alike. Your creativity can run wild and you can be whomever you want—the sky’s the limit. But instead of going out and buying a costume that you’ll wear for a couple of hours once a year, make one yourself (if you have time)! Most costume elements can be found at home or even borrowed from friends. For some great DIY kid’s costumes explore Real Simple, Handmade Charlotte and Parenting. If you’d like to buck the trend, try dressing your kid up as a historical figure and explain to them the significance of that person. For the adults out there, you are not forgotten! Here are some cool and culturally relevant DIY costumes from Buzzfeed, Babble and the daily green.
3. Think beyond the Jack O’Lantern
Carving pumpkins is a great Halloween activity; there are so many inventive ways to create a jack-o-lantern. Plus, it’s always nice to display your beautiful handiwork for the whole neighborhood to see. While you’re carving your pumpkin, instead of just chucking out the insides, put them to good use! There are many tasty ways to use more of the pumpkin like roasting the seeds and composting the rest.
4. Neighborhood clean-up
Trick or treating brings the whole neighborhood out and is a fun affair for all. But a night of trick-or-treating also makes for a lot of mess, with discarded candy wrappers and abandoned costumes littering the ground. Start a new tradition by rallying friends and family to clean up the ‘hood after Halloween by picking up garbage from the night before.
This article was originally published on Goodnet.org.
