Traditions help strengthen families. In this episode, Jen and Sara share some of their Halloween childhood memories, what they do currently to celebrate the holiday, and give ideas on some new traditions that can be implemented during this unique 2020 year.
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Jen: Hello and welcome to the Parents Place, a podcast put out by The Family Place for parents to develop skills that will strengthen families and provide tools that will help each of us in our parenting efforts. No matter our skills. We can always use reminders that help us work towards a safer, happier home. I'm your host. Jennifer Daly, the Education Director at the Family Place and my co-host is Sara Hendricks, a family educator at the Family Place. Every week, we will interview professionals that will provide valuable information that will make a difference when you apply it directly to your life. Thank you for joining us. Now, let's get started with today's episode.
Sara: Booooooooooooo, This is the Parents Place podcast!
Jen: Sara, what are you doing?
Sara: I was going for spooky! It is the Halloween episode!
Jen: Well, you do realize putting the flashlight up next to your face. No one can see it, and it's only audio.
Sara: OK, fine. Well, as you can see, this episode is going to look a little bit different than the ones we've done in the past. We're doing a Halloween episode, and it's just going to be Jen and me today. So, the purpose of this episode is to share some ideas that can help bring families closer together. Holidays are an easy way to harvest family togetherness and create lasting memories that will give our children something to look back on fondly. So, that's what we want to talk about today. We're going to talk about some past traditions from our own childhood, some current traditions that we do. And then we also want to talk about some new traditions because this year is pretty unique.
Jen: So, I just want to start off with a Halloween joke.
Sara: Let's hear it!
Jen: This one made me giggle! “All I gave you life. You gave me your Reese's. That's the deal. Every mom on Halloween.”
Sara: Evidently, although Reese’s aren’t my favorite. What would I choose? If there is midnight Milky Way? Nobody else gets those. Are you a Reese’s fan?
Jen: Yes, I do like Reese’s.
Sara: Yeah, I like them. They're just not my first choice. OK, so let's talk about some childhood traditions. What do you remember from your childhood?
Jen: The big thing that I remember from my childhood is we made our costumes. So one year I specifically remember getting my dad's ugliest shirt. And I believe if I remember, I filled that full of newspaper and I was a hobo! So I took the kitchen broom and I tied something on the end of it because I remember taking a picture that way and that was one of the big things that I remember. The other thing that I remember is my dad always would dress up. He was in the military and he would dress up in his camouflage and then his gas mask. We had this rocking chair and he would sit out in front, and that's how kids would get their candy. They would have to go up to the scary man.
Sara: That would be the worst! As a kid for me, I was struggling to remember any traditions from my childhood when it comes to Halloween because there really aren't a lot. It was mostly just on Halloween night we went trick or treating. Occasionally, very occasionally we carved pumpkins, but that wasn't something that we did every year. I maybe twice in my childhood, carved a pumpkin. And then I was thinking, I remember when I was really little like early elementary school that my mom's friends put together this Halloween party for kids. And it was a bunch of neighborhoods came together and it was. my memory of it, it was incredible. Like, there are all these different stations that you went to and you did a little activities. I remember one where there were like these cardboard cutouts and you stick your hand blindly through the holes and reach in and touch different things. And there was like this story as you're progressing, telling you what you're touching. And it was like peeled grapes, probably. But they were telling us they were eyeballs, and I forgot about that because I was super young when we did that. They stopped doing it after a certain time because I'm sure so much work went into it. And then one other thing I remember from my childhood Halloween was actually once I was in high school, I was either a freshman or a sophomore in high school, and my childhood best friend and I decided to create a Halloween video. And this is back when, like, you have the old school cameras, you know, like with the little flip screen to look at, and I don't think it had a cassette tape in it. I think it was still like a memory stick. Of some kind, I can't remember for sure.
Jen: You're too young to know what it was like to have a cassette tape and your video camera.
Sara: Oh no, I remember my dad pulling that out every single year for Christmas. This dinosaur of a camera that took ages to set up and it was torture to wait for that to be ready so that we could go open presents. Anyway, my friend and I created this Halloween video where we were teaching people. It was like a how to type of video teaching, how to trick or treat properly. But we were doing everything wrong. And so it was just a big disaster of a video like intentionally. And that was something that we watched over and over and over again. And still as adults, she still has the copy of it, and it's something we talk about all the time.
Jen: Oh goodness!
Sara: I believe it's circulating on social media somewhere.
Jen: I'll have to figure out what the title of it is so I can go find it!
Sara: Haha right? I'll see if I can get my hands on it and send it to you.
Jen: My brother was also born on Halloween, and so his birthday always kind of overshadowed everything else until we went trick or treating. And then that boy had no shame in saying, “It's my birthday today and I have some extra candy, please?”. So, that was always fun.
Sara: Oh man, he knew how to work it.
Jen: Yup!
Sara: OK. Hurray for October! the cobwebs in my house just became Halloween decorations.
Jen: That is true!
Sara: And the dust
Jen: And the dust! See perfect Halloween decorations! Well, since we didn't have tons of traditions for Halloween and my family, and I think a lot of people experience the same thing. Back in the day, there weren't a whole lot of Halloween traditions, so trying to create some now for our families is important. And so one that I love is watching Halloween movies. And so I have a whole collection of movies that I like to watch throughout the month of October. And so some of them are like, Something Wicked this way comes and that's a Disney one, Hocus Pocus is a good one, so there's lots of great Halloween movies that you can watch, and I like the old ones as well.
Sara: Something for us that we do currently is I love taking my kids to pick out their own pumpkins and then we always carve pumpkins. We also have some really fun Halloween decorations. I took black poster board, and I cut out monsters that are like as big as the poster board. I tried to fill up as much space as I could, so they would be larger and stuck them in all of the windows in the front of my house so that it looks like there are monster shadows or silhouettes in all of the windows. And it looks really fun at night when the lights are on and the blinds are shut because it's just like an outline of that monster. So that's a lot of fun. It brings me a lot of joy to see those as I'm coming and going to my house
Jen: That reminds me of my Halloween village! For years, my sister would give me for my birthday in August, one of those Halloween village pieces that Michaels sells. And so I had many of those and so come like September 30th. I get those out and put them all out. It's like this little ceremony of where everything is going to go and these little kids go with this little house. And so I love, love my Halloween village.
Sara: That sounds so awesome! I definitely want to see that! Halloween is my favorite holiday. I would say my top two favorites are Halloween and Easter, and Halloween might push out Easter a little bit. Because I think there's just so many fun things that you can do! And really, Halloween has so many different traditions and community activities and just different things that you can do throughout the month of October. It's not just the one day and then you're done, and it feels like it's comparable to Christmas because there's so many traditions that go along with Christmas as well. But for me, Halloween doesn't have the stress and expense that comes with Christmas, and so I just love it. I can just participate in all of these activities and just enjoy it and not feel any added stress. So one thing that I love doing for Halloween is making a big festive Halloween dinner. And we don't do this on Halloween, we typically do it the Saturday before because I need like the whole day to do all of the cooking and preparing, and I want my family to sit down around the dinner table and enjoy it and not be rushing off to go trick or treating. And so I've started doing it as a theme, but in the past it was just anything Halloween related. It was just kind of. A smorgasbord and now with doing themes, it might be like everything relates to witches or everything relates to ghosts. But it's just so much fun to me because it's something that I know my children will remember throughout their adult life. Like Jen and I right now trying to remember our childhood traditions centered around Halloween.
It's really hard for us to come up with any, but I know that they will never forget these Halloween dinners because it's something unique and they really look forward to it. And they start asking me in early September if I've been planning and thinking about what we're going to do for our Halloween dinner. So it's fun! And it also doesn't have to be extravagant, like if this is something you wanted to start doing in your home, just decorating the table can be really fun and festive for our kids. That's something I include with my dinner is I make sure that we have some sort of Halloween tablecloth and I either stick the pumpkins on the table or just different decorations that we might have all moved to the table so that it feels more festive. And over the years, I've started accumulating more things and we have candles and that kind of thing. But just decorating makes it fun and festive, and we've done dinners before where I don't go all out in the food that we eat. It's normal food, but I've named it different things. And so one year we did breakfast for dinner and we had pancakes and eggs and bacon, and we call them different things. And so like the scrambled eggs, it was zombie brain and the bacon were monster fingers like just different things. And that dinner was so fun because my kids were pretty little. I would say maybe two and four or three and five, and I didn't serve up their plates. And so any time they needed something, they had to request that food by calling it the fun name. Like, “Will you please pass the zombie brains?” And so we all just giggled the whole time. It was so fun!
So it doesn't have to be anything extreme to try to incorporate it in your own homes. And then one other thing, because I feel like food is a way to create long lasting memories. I remember when I was in early elementary school. This isn't Halloween related. My mom one time surprised me with a note in my school lunch, and I think there was like a little fun size candy bar or something. And I still, to this day, remember how that made me feel to open up my lunch and have this unexpected surprise and this little note that my mom was telling me she was thinking of me. And I just loved that. And I remember this might sound ridiculous, but I remember as a kid thinking, I'm going to do that when I'm a mom. And so now I try to do little things like that here and there for my kids. But with Halloween, especially, I try to do like little festive things on Halloween in their school lunch. But it can be so simple, like taking a string cheese and drawing a ghost face on it so that it looks like a ghost and that doesn't take much time or effort on my end. But when my kids open up their lunch, they're like, super excited about that. So I just try to incorporate different things in their school lunches as well, because I know that that makes their day.
Jen: My stepdaughter is really good at makeup and she posts them on Instagram, and I am constantly worried of what I'm going to see because sometimes she does some pretty good, really scary ones and I'm afraid of clowns. So every time I'm worried she's going to put a clown on there. But it's fun and it makes me laugh and we go back and we were just looking at them last week and saying, “Well, you should do this for this year”. And so that's been fun.
Sara: Yeah. My poor children, makeup and hair are lost on me and they have the most beautiful hair, and I just can't figure out how to do it nicely. And then for Halloween, trying to do makeup on their faces, I'm like, “Oh my goodness”, it's a disaster.
Jen: It's one of her most favorite things to do, and we'll go to the Halloween store together and she'll get ideas from there. So here we go. It's time for another joke. “If I'm going to take you all over the neighborhood begging for candy, then yes, I'm going to take half. It's called the candy tax.”
Sara: Absolutely! I worked hard for that candy, too! All right, so, with this, you're being unique because of Corona Virus. And in some places where you live, there might be some rules and regulations that keep you from doing Halloween traditionally. We wanted to just share some ideas that you might be able to do in place of trick or treating.
Jen: One that comes to mind is like a movie night. So having your neighbors come and you can social distance that way. Bring your lawn chairs or your blankets or whatnot and just choose one house and then project that movie up onto your garage. And that could be a nice social distance activity for the whole family. You could do individually bagged candies for the kids so that they could still get their candy if that is super important to them. But that neighborhood coming together and watching that movie could be an awesome tradition to start.
Sara: Yeah, that sounds really fun.
Jen: I think about my sister and her family. And they do this in their neighborhood, not where the whole neighborhood comes together, but they always have a movie projecting on their garage. And then they take it an extra step and they make homemade donuts and hot cocoa. And so their house is like the place to go to. But Ithink this is a good alternative. So not making all of that food because we're not supposed to be exchanging food right now. And so individually bagging some candy for some kids and having a neighborhood movie would be a fun idea.
Sara: Yeah, and everybody could bring their own movie snacks and that kind of stuff. That does sound like a lot of fun! Another idea could be involving the neighborhood as well and doing some sort of costume parade so that the kids still get to show off their costumes because that's something that's so exciting for kids is getting to wear that costume and have other people see what they chose to be for Halloween. So it's still provide that opportunity for them.
Jen: Another idea I think would be fun is to do reverse, trick or treating. So instead of going in and trick or treating to everybody house, you just prepare individually bagged candies to where you can take it to the kids friends and leave it on the doorstep. Maybe doorbell ditch and put it on the stack and then run to the end of the driveway. So you're still in your costumes, your friends still get to see you and your costume, and that could be a fun activity as well. I remember door ditching when I was a kid, and I always loved it.
Sara: Yes, I remember too, but I don't know if I should admit that! For sure, I could see the kids having a lot of fun doing a reverse trick or treating.
Jen: You could also do like a treasure hunt within your own home
Sara: Or a scavenger hunt.
Jen: Yeah. Your own little spook alley in your house. Like Sara said earlier, her family did it as a big neighborhood to where you did like the peeled grapes and that kind of stuff. But you can do it just in your own home to where your kids are doing it, and you can make some really gross stuff for your kids to have to dig through.
Sara: For sure, you think about boiled noodles, just wet noodles. It's funny that you say that because my kids are literally in the hallway right now building a haunted hallway. I have no idea what it's going to look like, but they're having fun!
Jen: That sounds like fun! You could also do like a haunted blanket fort
Sara: Oh yeah, fun! And watch the Halloween movie!
Jen: A blanket fort, a movie, and candy, what more could you ask for? That sounds like a ton of fun!
Sara: For sure! So there's definitely things that we can do in place of trick or treating this year, if that's what we need to do to stay safe. So we just wanted to share some of those fun ideas. OK, so let's throw in one last joke before we close up this episode. “Every time I avoid eating Halloween candy, I reward myself by eating Halloween candy.”
Jen: That is true. You can never stop at just one piece.
Sara: Yeah, I didn't eat any. I'm going to reward myself with some candy!
Jen: There you go! So I think that's all we have time for Sara! I've really enjoyed doing this podcast today and hopefully it does bring some smiles, some giggles, and hopefully there's plenty of ideas for you to be able to choose from for your family. Definitely, you don't have to implement all of them. Just choose one that you may want to start with, or just do some research on your own and find a new tradition. Traditions, we know, help strengthen families. And that's what we're all about here at the family place and with Sara and myself is strengthening the family. So be a starfish thrower this October. Find a new tradition and have a ghoulish time
Sara: And Spooktacular day!
Jen: Join us next week and if you have any questions in past episodes, we've told you just to click on the comments button on our website if you would like to send a message. But now we've moved up in the world. We have our own email and so you can email us at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org. See you next time! And hope you have a great Halloween!
Sara: Thanks again for listening! The Family Place is a non-profit organization in Logan, Utah, with a mission to strengthen families and protect children. We call ourselves starfish throwers. If you're unsure what that means, refer back to our introduction episode where we explain it. The good news is you can be a starfish thrower too by subscribing to the Parents Place podcast and liking our social media pages! If this episode resonated with you, please share it with others and help us get our message out to more people. Also, be sure to check the show notes for links to information referenced in this episode. That's all for now, but we'll catch you again next time on the Parents Place.
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