Halloween Inspirations

 

Given the current crisis, it’s hard to look forward to a favorite holiday, Halloween! I thought you might find some inspiration into how we’ve managed to celebrate, have fun and still be safe!

Halloween Hunt!

Think Easter egg hunt with a Halloween Theme.  The Kid decorated the house to set the mood. On Halloween, The Family will hunt for tricks and treats, inside the safe confines of home sweet and scary home. Appropriate music will be played, of course. And cake will be enjoyed.

A Visit by the Great Pumpkin!

To stay connected with the neighborhood, participating families are packing little treat bags, filled with wrapped only candies and a few trinkets. Individualized treat bags – one for each child -- are “delivered” to mail boxes, by none other than The Great Pumpkin himself.

Scary Reads!

Of course, what’s a Halloween Party without scary tales! A few of our favorites this year include:

Skeleton Hiccups, by Margery Cuyler. (Margaret McElderry Books; Reprint Edition. August 2005). A skeleton and his ghost friend try to cure his case of hiccups. Check out this site for book activities for Skeleton Hiccups!  

Click, Clack, Boo!, by Doreen Cronin. (Atheneum Books for Young Readers. August 2013). A Halloween classic, for sure, in which Farmer Brown wants to sleep through Halloween, but his animal friends won’t let him! Check out this site for book activities for Click, Clack, Boo!

One of my favorites is Room on a Broom, by Julia Donaldson. (Puffin Books. August 2003).  A “spooky/silly spin on the folktale format”, says Publishers Weekly. Check out this site for book activities for Room on a Broom. And be sure to check out her book, The Gruffalo!

Children’s Library Lady lists several more books for toddlers to elementary ages that promise a night full of reading fun!

Of course, one member of the family was not amused by all the activity.  No doubt he has other plans. 

The Cat and the Moon

by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat, looked up.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

For, wander and wail as he would,

The pure cold light in the sky

Troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass

Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet,

What better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

Tired of that courtly fashion,

A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

(The Cat and the Moon" is reprinted from The Wild Swans at Coole. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1919.)

What are your favorite Halloween Inspirations?

--Bobbi Miller