Every year at Halloween I find myself running around at the last minute trying to finish a costume, find one more item I need, or pick up candy at the last minute. Inevitably this takes me out of my green comfort zone and leads me to purchase over-packaged high fructose candy, costumes manufactured overseas, or something else equally unsustainable.
But this year will be different! (Ha, I say that every year, about every holiday.)
This year my procrastinating ways are your friendly reminder to get moving on this whole Halloween thing. Are you ready? I don't mean "Yeah, sure, we have some stuff" ready. I mean "Absolutely have everything we need and I'm sure of it" ready.
Candy
Are you giving out candy this year? Is it to people you know? If so, can you instead give handmade treats to avoid individually packaged candy? If not, is there a local chocolatier or candy shop you can support? We have a cute little taffy shop here in town. Or how about a small gift you can give that isn't packaged?
Costumes
Are your kids costumes ready? Do you have every thing they need down to the shoes or the jacket they'll wear over it if it's cold? If not, where can you go to get something 2nd hand? Can you borrow from a friend? Make it yourself? Be sure to leave yourself time! You might even do a trial run. Put the kids' costumes on and see if anything is missing, itchy, too big, too small, etc.
Pumpkins
Will you be carving a pumpkin? Can you get it from a local pumpkin patch? Plan some free time one afternoon or this weekend to go!
Parties
Going to a Halloween party? Kids having one at school? What will you need to bring? Reserve time in your schedule to make homemade pumpkin muffins instead of store-bought cupcakes.
So far this year we've spent $5 on Halloween. Living in the boondocks has it's benefits, like the fact that we get no trick-or-treaters, thus no candy to buy. Score! Macy is wearing the princess dress up costume that she already has. Felix is wearing Fletcher's hand-me-down skunk costume. Fletcher had his heart set on being Spiderman, so we got his costume at Goodwill for $5.
Remember the days when you made your own costume because the ones they sold at the store were totally lame?
2 comments:
I wish my son would wear something else. he's set on a stars wars costume and I'm running out of time for a used one. I like your idea of no candy. I want to give out coupons to Wendy's or McDonalds
I always wanted to live where there are 100s of trick or treaters. We do now (and have for 5 years). Downside: that makes it really really expensive to give out goodies. Homemade goodies are out because there are SO many people and we know only a small fraction. Local chocolatiers are too pricey. Heck, even the cheap stuff adds up. I remember our first year, we ended up spending about $100 on candy and had to turn out the light at 7:45. This year, I'm inclined to just turn out the light and be a scrooge.
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