How We Celebrate Halloween

I have wonderful memories of Halloween growing up. My mom went all out every year from costumes to decorations. I can remember her dressing up as grapes, a pirate handing out gold coins, and one year rigging up a contraption to the front door that dropped a huge black spider when the door was opened. We never celebrated with ghosts or goblins just with imagination and creativity. It was one day a year we could put on angel wings, a princess crown, or be a cheerleader and I loved it. We decorated pumpkins, went to our churches harvest party, and trick or treated with our Dad around our small neighborhood. It was a day of fun.

I wanted to continue some of these traditions on with The Brother's and add in a few new ones. We head out to a pumpkin patch each year and pick out pumpkins and carve them. This year we made our Hack-o-Lanterns on Halloween morning. I love how they turned out! Shane was especially excited for the eyebrows and bit round mouth on the top pumpkin.

After nap time we headed to The Town Center around 4:30 in costume and met up with one of Shane's buddies, aka Spider Man, and Trick or Treated. All the stores and businesses hand out candy and the street is blocked off so its safe and at a convenient time for The Brothers. Shane was a construction worker and Keith was a chef. They looked ADORABLE!

After we Trick or Treated a bit and looked at all the costumes we went home and made our Jack-o-Lantern pizzas. I started this tradition last year because Shane is allergic to egg. Seeing as how egg is used in lots of candy I only took him to one neighbors house and he got one piece of candy that was safe for him to eat. I wanted Shane to have something special last year so we made cookies and a pizza in a pumpkin shape. I wanted it to be a special day for my sweet little one year old not one filled with tears because he could not eat anything that he was given. Truth be told, at the age of one, he did not know any better but I knew this year would be harder so we started our tradition and at least the pizza stuck.

Then we put Keith to bed and popped in a movie for the rest of us while I handed out treats. This year we handed out temporary tattoos and some dye free organic lollipops. Yup, I am that mom with the non traditional treats and proud to be. I could not find a picture of the tattoos but Target had a box of 20 for $2.99 and I grabbed two plus these lollipops from Whole Foods for $3.99 that were really good.

A new tradition was added this year called the Teal Pumpkin Project which encourages communities to have non-food treats available for those that have food allergies. Though Shane has partially outgrown his egg allergy I have a heart for children and their families that miss out on the fun because of a food allergy. It is hard having to tell your kids they can't eat at parties, holidays, and events especially when they are little and don't understand why they can't eat what everyone else is having. I snagged this picture from the 100 Day's of Real Food  Facebook page of  Lisa's family's teal pumpkin where I first read about the project so you could get a visual for the campaign. I did not get around to painting a pumpkin teal but I still had a sign out and handed out some non food treats.

Here are a few ideas taken from the FARE website of what you can hand out instead of candy if you need a bit of inspiration. Next year I will be ready with my teal paint and I hope your family will too!

Glow sticks, bracelets, or necklaces Pencils, pens, crayons or markers Bubbles Halloween erasers or pencil toppers Mini Slinkies Whistles, kazoos, or noisemakers Bouncy balls Finger puppets or novelty toys

Coins Spider rings Vampire fangs Mini notepads Playing cards Bookmarks Stickers Stencils