Time to pull out your Smarties-box-covered-pants and call yourself Smarty-Pants again!  Halloween (or Hallowe’en as some might say, depending on their accent) is here again!

I love Halloween, but I hate trying to figure out what I’m going to be.  Every year I say, “this year is going to be different, I’m going to be something creative, witty, intelligent, and original.”   Then find myself scrambling through the leftovers at a thrift shop on October 30th, only to find a cheesy butterfly collared shirt and proclaim,  “Looks like I’ll be the half-70′s guy again this year!”

I wasn’t always such a disaster at Halloween.  I have fond memories of dressing up as something different every year when I was a kid, carrying a huge garbage bag around the neighbourhood for trick-or-treating, dreaming it would be full by the end of the night.  We’d go out with our neighbours as a huge pack, running blocks ahead of our parents, looking for the scariest houses.  Our costumes would be covered up by our snowsuits some years, but we didn’t mind so much.

Now that I have kids of my own, I love to see the excitement in their eyes on Halloween and relive those days.  Last year, when I took my son out, we saw a boy dressed like Winnie-the-Pooh.  We only caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of our eyes, but my son got so excited.  “That was Winnie-the-Pooh!!” he shouted, probably thinking that it REALLY WAS Winnie-the-Pooh that we had just seen.

This year will be a busy Halloween weekend, since it falls on a Sunday.  It seems like Halloween parties and events are being planned for both the Saturday and the Sunday!  The kids will like that (as will we, since we don’t have any choice but to eat half of their treats — don’t want them having too many sweets after all ).

In typical Dad Jam fashion, I’ve put together a list of random tips and tricks to help you through this Halloween.  So, without further ado, I give you, The Dad Jam’s “Extremely Haunted and Mysterious, Magically Scary, Random Halloween Tips and Thoughts List” (written by The Vampire Jammer):

1. Scary Finger Cookies:  These are my favorite things to make on Halloween.  They are easy and look really scary.  Just get a shortbread cookie recipe (very easy to make… basically just butter, flour and sugar), and shape the cookies like fingers.  Add in a knuckle and to make it look convincing.  Put a whole almond on the end for the fingernail.  Use red food colouring around the fingernail to make it look like blood is oozing from the nail.  Spooky Halloween Warning:  Do not use almonds if you expect to have kids with nut allergies present!
2. Costumes: How about some funny family costume ideas?  Like the kids as animals and you as a circus ring-leader?  Or you all go as a superhero family?
3. Parties:  Since Halloween is on the weekend this year, it is a great chance to throw an afternoon party for the kids, followed by some trick-or-treating.  If you want to splurge, you can even hire a magician or wizard to come and put on a spooky Halloween magic show (I love magic).
4. Events: If you live in the Vancouver, BC area, the Kid’s Market on Granville Island has trick-or-treating in the early afternoon on October 31st.  You can bring your kids in costume, and they can trick-or-treat in all the shops in the Kid’s Market.  I do this every year with the kids.  Check out the area where you live to see if any similar events are going on.
5. Pumpkin Patches:  The best way to get a pumpkin for Halloween, for making your scariest Jack-O-Lantern, is to pick one yourself at a Pumpkin Patch!  I did this with the kids and it was a lot of fun.  The kids were so excited to see pumpkins that were “still attached!”  And there were tonnes to choose from, so I let the kids choose.  Where we went (the Pumpkin Patch in Richmond/Steveston), there were also pony rides, a band, hay fights, and a wagon ride too).
6. Safety first (so why did I put it last on the list… hmmm… read this list from the bottom up please!):  This is probably not the first time you are hearing (or reading) this, but be sure, if you are going outside at night with the kids that you have an ample number of parent supervisors, and that the kids are visible in the dark (e.g. put reflectors on their costumes if they are dressed as dark vampires).  Also, inspect all the treats before you let the kids eat them, discarding anything that seems suspicious, has been opened, etc.

So we’ll leave it at 6 because that is a spooky number when written three times in a row.  I hope you have a happy, fantastic, ghouly, and safe Halloween!  Please leave a comment to let us know your Halloween stories and random scary tips!

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Note: I wrote this post while participating in a blog campaign by Dad Central Consulting and they sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

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