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

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My kids love to put up decorations, some we buy and some we make ourselves. We have a halloween inspired dinner like Ghoulash and make and decorate cupcakes. My middle one likes to dress up usually as a witch while my son prefers his spiderman outfit and we always get some funsize sweets which we end up eating most of as we don't get many trick or treaters ( I'm sure there used to be lots more than there are now)

We get together with the neighbours to create a night to remember for the kids. We live in a cul-de-sac of 12 houses, and out of the 12, 11 participate! Every year we hold a party in one of the houses, there is no rota, just whoever it's easiest for (or whoever has the cleanest house on the day lol).
It all started one Halloween about 9 years ago, it was absolutely pouring down with rain, and so cold and windy, and a few of the kids were getting over bugs, so, we got everyone together, did some bobbing for apples, put on a spooky film, and ended up giving all the kids the candy we had for other trick or treaters, and made a massive party for them.
Since then, Halloween has been a massive deal for our road, and we look forward to it as much as Christmas! x
So my tip is, get everyone involved! Make this a time of year that you get to know new people and have fun!

Shop around in second hand shops buy dark clothes make in to old style witches costume

I always bake cookies instead of candys. I also bake for kids to eat at home. They love all creepy, spooky biscuits. Costumes I buy usually few weeks before.

we make all kids together spider and wicked cakes,

i searched for pinterest and googleimages for ideas. it will be fun.i will be very creative for the costumes.
i have bought the decorations from discounted shops too.
i bought bulks of sweets as well from ebay.its cheaper!

Buy silly costume from Ebay and go trick or treating - well - not me; but daughter does.

Only one that picks up costumes in the supermarket, throws couple of the multipack of fun sized chocolate bars that are the cheapest in the trolley and gets DH on pumpkin carving duty then?

Everyone else makes big effort? Just me being rubbish then! I'd make a bit more effort if it fell in the school holidays, but being a school night does mean it'll be a low effort thing.

Local spooky farm trail great for the little ones. They love the pumpkins as well

We tend to get a lot of trick or treaters coming around and we take turns opening the door. For us it's all about having a spooky effect for the kids that come over, but having a bit of humour there so it's not too scary. We don't want the kids having nightmares!

My son gets scared really easily so we will be avoiding anything too dramatic. Possibly just get a simple outfit (not too scary) for dressup day at nursery.

We print out a design to pinprick through on a pumpkin which makes it look really impressive.DD and I have done Hello Kitty, Gruffly and several Harry Potter ones.

We buy 10 pumpkins, have a pumpkin decorating area, with glitter, paints and all sorts. Keeps everybody happy and entertained

Turn off the lights and doorbell

We’re Halloween-obsessed in our house so on 1st Oct we get out our box of Halloween decorations from storage - ghostly portraits, orange tinsel, even bloody handprint hand towels - splurge on mountains of chocolate and get our costumes in order.

This year is our first year with a baby so I’ve gone a little OTT with the Halloween onesies and also two costumes - a pumpkin and a cartoon character 🎃

But the best trick was my mum’s - when I was in primary school and told her only the night before everyone would be wearing costumes the next day at school, she stayed up all night fashioning me a witch’s outfit out of a black bin liner!

I'm not very crafty and am time poor so all our Halloween stuff is bought in. But I save money by raiding the supermarkets for discounted Halloween goodies on 1 November!

Buy a versatile Halloween Costume you can get use out of all year. Put a pumpkin on the doorstep on Halloween this is the universal way to say we accept trick or treaters. Houses decorated are invitations to take your children if not stay away. Small multipacks are the way forward many boxes in a packet treat sized so no sugar overload and many are on offer atm. No need to buy all halloween decorations just buy apack of halloween stickers and place on and create own decorations when halloweens over just remove stickers and no money wasted on deocrations only used once a year. Glow sticks light the way on a dark halloween night fun for the kids and helpful to see where you are headed.

Have more treats than you could possibly imagine needing for visitors, but only put a few out in the bowl at a time.

Halloween makes me a bit sad because I always anticipate streams of trick or treaters but don't get many on our street as many of the residents are fairly elderly :(

My DD is only tiny so it's simple to give her a great halloween, last year we went to a Trick or Treat event at our huge shopping centre which was sweet and this year we will be doing a spooky scavenger hunt, and dunking "ghost" marshmallows in hot chocolate. Can't wait

Visiting our local pumpkin patch is always awesome :) they have pumpkin soup, storytelling and of course pimpkin picking! Its a lovely tradition to get prepared for halloween. I always panic buy an over priced tub of sweets in preparation for trickle treaters!

The usual pumping carving -DH is quite a dab hand at this

Costumes are whatever we can find in the house from pictures we google. I try not to buy them as expensive for an evening's wear.

DD and I make Halloween cupcakes and we have the usual stash of Haribo for the trick or treaters which I try not to keep eating

years ago me and hubby would dress up and answer door with a lit candle and talk very slowly - mixed reactions. This year we are making our own choc apple as DD is dairy intolerant so often cant eat her trick or treat x x (dont worry her cousins get the sweets)

We have Halloween traditions!
Every year we go to Farmer Copley's pumpkin festival-
We pick our pumpkins
Read spookly the square pumpkin
Eat treacle toffee
And when we get home watch Hocus Pocus

For Halloween, we decorate the house the day before (we go all out- sound affects, lighting...all that...we really should live in America)
We then go trick or treating and leave sweet bags out for any children that come to ours whilst were out (very trusting I know but we always have aback up supply)

Make sure the curtains and blinds are all closing properly and reassure DS1 that it's OK, we don't have to answer the door just because someone is knocking

We paint each other’s faces.. with icing sugar, usually, and food colouring. We use natural food things and colouring.. and we dig out a pumpkin together.. we have light party before, and on the night bob for apples..