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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Bake a Pumpkin cheesecake

Ingredients
225g/8oz digestive biscuits
60g/2oz butter
juice and zest 1 lemon
340g/12oz cooked pumpkin (steamed or roasted)
225g/8oz caster sugar
450g/1lb cream cheese
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2.5g/½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4 eggs
90ml/3fl oz double cream
90ml/3fl oz natural yoghurt

Method:
1

1. Heat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.

2.Bash the digestive biscuits into crumbs. Melt the butter over a low heat and mix in the biscuit crumbs and lemon zest. Lightly grease a 25cm/10in loose-bottomed cake tin and press the crumbs into the base and up the sides slightly.

1. Mix together the cream cheese, pumpkin flesh, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg until smooth. Beat the eggs and fold into the pumpkin mixture. Turn into the tin and bake in the oven for 90 minutes until the surface is set but the underneath still slightly squidgy.

1. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and let it cool in the tin. When cool, turn it on to a serving plate, cover with foodwrap and chill overnight.

1. Whip the double cream until thick and fold in the yoghurt and the lemon juice. Spread over the top of the cheesecake and serve at room temperature.

We always make spooky Halloween treats for the kids trick or treating and always have lots of chocolate on hand

Since it ia an Americanised festival - we usually do it their way and not necessarilly a scary costume - we dig out things from school and world book day!

Don't leave everything to the last minute!

We've been caught out before by leaving things to the last minute, and then finding everywhere has sold out of pumpkins and decent costumes in the kids sizes.

The local custom is for trick or treaters to only visit decorated houses, and almost everyone seems to respect this.

Make a lucky dip with scary things.

Loo paper makes great decorations - mummies, ghosts etc. I always take my little ones to houses where we know the people so that it stays safe.

Kids just love a bit of GORE on halloween my tip is to do a lucky dip use a gorged out pumpkin - no holes apart from the one in the top! - cold water and throw in some wet soggy pasta (thats the worms), then some hot dogs (fingers), sprouts for rotten eyeballs and sunk at the bottom is some small rocks with numbers on (gallstones), one of them is for the star prize of a terrys chocolate orange, the other numbers for the rest of the sugary tatt the kids eat! they have to keep their hand in for 10 seconds and feel the gallstones and pick just one.

I'm not a fan of Halloween so don't go over board have a pumpkin outside door with a few deocrations like a skeleton hanging on front door so trick and treaters know their welcome as my son loves to hand out the sweets to them.

I always make sure I buy the costumes in plenty of time before they run out in the shops.

I am bad at making costumes but love the latest mask being advertised: The peeper, you place it on your windowsill and it looks through the window! It is really creepy and scares/worries/makes people uneasy and we love it!

Pumpkin carving is always an activity everyone enjoys and having coloured hair spray always makes for a quick costume!

My mum goes mad at Halloween with loads of interactive outdoor figures and a steaming cauldron. We get the Trick or Treating done pretty early and then have pumpkin and chilli soup and watch some scary ahem Hocus Pocus movies.

1. Buy a big box of lovely Swizzels sweets.
2. Hope nobody knocks on the door.

I would love to decorate the house but we always go out so it seems pointless when we arent gonna be there for the trick and treaters.

I love to try and be different with my daughters outfits but it doesnt always work out that way. This year she is going as a devil so am planning that at the mo! xx

I love to dress up and scare the trick or treaters! When we go out trick or treating we always stick to the rule of only knocking when the household has decorated or put a pumpkin out!

Homemade costumes are the way to go for us. Just the excitement and engagement between us all make it worthwhile. They may not look as scary as some of the pre-made shop stuff but works for us.

We love Halloween in our house and it is always a time to get excited in the run up. The kids always have an input on what type of costume they would like and we usually get the ipad and have a look for ideas and inspiration a couple of weeks before hand.
We have quite a few decorations which weren't expensive to buy and were just got from the high street and get brought out every year. Obviously pumpkins are a must and both the kids and I get loads of enjoyment carving them and then displaying them in our front window.
On Halloween itself we always go Trick or Treating early in the evening usually around about 4.30 and then we always go to a party. If no one that I know is having one I check the local papers and web forums to see what is being organised and we go to one of those instead. The kids love it and it is a great way to meet other parents.

I am absolutely useless at costumes so we tend to beg/borrow them from friends. I did once get an American friend to send over an amazing mask when my eldest was young.

We always do a pumpkin and make cookies. We don't do 'Trick or treat' unless friends and family get together. I prefer Guy Fawkes!

We bake lots of spooky yummy goodies for our party, we experiment with make-up too and do some cool scary looking things!!!

PRETEND TO BE FRIGHTENED ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE LITTLE ONES GIVE THEM LOADS OF GOODIES

Turn guests into mummies with toilet paper, great fun but VERY messy

We always use old clothes and adapt them. Last year we scruffed/fake bloodied up a dress with a large stain on and added a 'prom queen sash' to transform my daughter into a zombie prom queen. £1 tiara, a flowery bobble and you're done!

We have all of the family round who dress up, we play the mummy dressing contest with loo roll, duck apple and have a spooky dance off!! The children love it.

My children are older now so we don't dress up but I always have sweets in for the trick o treaters when they call - I do hang Halloween lights up just to get into the spirit 👻👺💀

A small group of us go trick or treating around each other's houses - we get goodies and then move onto the next house with the group getting bigger as we go around and ending in a party at the last person's house.