Share your Halloween preparation tips with Cadbury - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Preparing for any celebration (Halloween no exception!) can be easier when you have the knowledge of others to help you out. With this in mind, Cadbury would like to hear about the ways you prepare for Halloween - whether you have creative costume ideas, crafty Halloween decorating skills - really any way you get trick-or-treat ready come the 31st October.

Do you have any great costume ideas? Maybe you have tips for creating a fabulous spooky look indoors or for when trick or treaters come up to your door? What are your ways of ensuring everyone has fun when going out trick or treating on Halloween? Whatever your tips and tricks for preparing for Halloween, please share them below to be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thread closing 20th October.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

By posting on this thread, you are agreeing to the standard Insight T&Cs.

We have just moved in to a new house which is being completely renovated, so Halloween is going to be quick and easy for me this year!

I must admit though, as the new radiators were delivered I squirreled away one of the rather large cardboard boxes they came in... in order to cut out a ghosty shape and stick it in our top floor window for Halloween. Simple, yet affective :)

We always buy extra large marshmallows and decorate the faces with ghosts

If you're buying costumes, do it early, or the size you want will have disappeared.

We make trick or treating a family event and all go out. We take some ready made bags out with us and pass them out as we go and it saves everyone coming to our house .

Buy a pumpkin and some chocolate to hand out to children who knock at our door.

We love carving pumpkins at Halloween & taking our three DC'S trick or treating & then when our youngest DC is getting tired he likes to get home to answer the door to any visitors armed with a bowl of goodies. DH dresses the outside of the house up we always have a lovely time.

Any pregnant ladies? Heres an idea....this is how I told the village I was pregnant. At a halloween party...."bun in the oven"

We play 'toast the ghost'

Put big white marshmallows onto skewers. Use melted dark chocolate to paint on eyes. Then the kids toast them over a fire in the garden.

Buy the miniatures pack of chocolate bars (and always buy 1 or 2 extra bags than you think)- because in your fit or organisation you WILL eat your way through one of them a week before Halloween even begins....

We buy masks in advance and bake tasty treats

Definitely pumpkin carving

We don't do Halloween yet as my two are too young but we always have a bucket of sweets ready from the pound shop for any trick or treaters who stop by!

A little white clothes with two eye drawn on and hang over a black fake tree

I prepare for Halloween by putting a polite notice on the door asking people not to knock. DH is a shift worker and is usually trying to catch up on much needed sleep. Over the years we’ve had varying success with this, it would be fantastic if parents only allowed their children to call at houses that are decorated/ lit up.

We wait to buy costumes a couple of days before as they all get reduced and my 2 aren't bothered by lack of choice.
We go to the pumpkin farm every year so dc can pick their own and make an afternoon of it with friends.

Our village is great; there's an unwritten rule that you only knock at houses with a pumpkin/decorations and everyone really respects it.

Children are really polite too, quick to say thank you.

We have pets rats so I always answer the door with one on my shoulder. The kids love it and always want to stroke/ask questions etc...the adults not so much! 😂

I try and buy trick or treat sweets in advance so we don't forget. However this usually ends up in me eating them and re-buying them a couple of times!
Love some pumpkin carving

look in the Christmas isle and buy the big sharing family tubs of chocs for home and trick a treaters.
after the event buy the discounted Halloween chocs ad sweets for xmas.
print out the shape of skelton,bones or ghost onto paper.then trace onto white felt.about a dozen then sew onto an all black outfit.looks fab.
get yourself an old sheet and dye it black.cover human and shape cut whole for limbs etc.add belt to waist.then buy a big batch of those little glo stick.stitch or stick onto the sheet look brilliant in the dark,

We like to get pumpkins from our local PYO place. My eldest loves choosing her own.p

Well we've already got our DS an outfit (it's his first Halloween!). Other than that we're very much make the outfit, I have been a spider a few times, filling some old tights with news paper and hanging them from me! Works very well!

There are some great ideas in here! It's our first Halloween with a child so I'm looking forward to decorating and dressing up. Growing up we always had some motion detected scary noise machine at the front door - guaranteed to spook any trick or treaters!

Use Glow Sticks inside a carved Pumpkin to make it safe for little children. Also stops the wind from extinguishing it if the Pumpkin is kept outside! 🎃👍🏻

Taking a Toddler/young child out Trick or Treating? Pop black/red/white tights on them (yes even on boys!) underneath their flimsy costume to help keep them warm and snug! 👻

If you're not a fan of trick or treating, get a large or small group of friends & neighbours to meet up in a Church Hall or similar, on Halloween with their families. All dressed up with your own little free 'stall' with your batch of Halloween treats and maybe even a few spooky games to try? (Think Apple Bobbing, Pin the Tail on the Witch etc) Then walk around with your kids, to collect their treats. Essentially creating your own perfectly safe 'Trick or Treat Meetup' Decorate the area you're in, make some spooky punch & snacks to share, maybe even a BBQ?
Much more fun and safe than Trick or Treating! If a local Church is happy to allow the use of the Church Hall for free as a gesture for the children, then even better! If not, all chip in towards the cost 🎃

*Cadburys Halloween Treats that was meant to say! What a typo!!

We don't take part in Halloween- I'm just not keen on trick or treating. We do, however, enjoy a day out at the local pumpkin patch where you can pick your own pumpkin to take away. There's lots about and there's always fun activities to do there besides choosing a pumpkin

Start planning the costume early but keep talking to them about it so they don't change their mind, buy sweeties in bit by bit so it's not too expensive but hide them in the garage so husband and children cannot find them....