Catherine Cloutier | L’Emmèredeuse
In our home, Halloween… is very important! It’s our favourite holiday with the kids. We start early and as parents, we invest a great deal in making this a very special evening.
This week, we kicked off our candy season with these cute little customized pockets to store all their goodies. They can be coloured, are reusable and all profits go to the Breakfast Club of Canada. I have been thinking about the couples costume that Guillaume and I would make for some time now. We always make DIY costumes and they generally get a good reaction out of people when we go trick-or-treating.
I usually shop at second-hand stores and church basements, which gives clothes a second chance at life. In recent years, our most successful costumes were dinosaur tails (and our make-up, tee hee!) and our Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads.
This year, we will dress up as Oreo cookies. We will each be half of the cookie!
I always find inspiration on Pinterest, and then let my imagination do the rest. Here are some ideas that might inspire you!
I am dying for a theme that would include the entire family, but I think it’s important to let kids express their personality through their choice of costume.
We also pull out all the stops to decorate our house. Each year, we set aside a little budget to purchase a few more accessories. We make an effort to choose quality decorations that will last for several years; this kind of small gesture makes a big difference for our planet! We also reuse our pumpkins to make baked seeds and pumpkin soup or pumpkin-maple pie. De-lic-ious!
Halloween evening is quite the tradition in our house. We invite friends and family over for a pizza dinner. Adults are always just as excited as the kids. We always keep a roll of paper towel on hand for little spills. Once everyone is nice and full, we finally leave to go trick-or-treating.
What’s most important is to take the time to take your time. To take the opportunity to take a slew of mental pictures of your kiddos and to keep smiling. It’s normal for kids to get a little out of control. As long as they listen to the safety rules, the rest doesn’t matter!
So we start out in a great mood, we manage turns in the wagon, runny noses and kids who are overwhelmed by all the excitement and… it smells like happiness!
Back at home, each child chooses a corner to admire their loot, and we take this time to check all the candy, throwing out those with no wrappers and any whose wrappers are damaged. We also make sure there is nothing sharp hidden in the soft candy (and steal one or two chocolates while we’re at it).
Mother’s tip: I decide beforehand how many candies I allow them to eat that evening (and the next morning for breakfast–I know, I’m still a kid deep down inside) to prevent negotiations.
On that note, I wish you all a wonderful Halloween with your little ones!
