We're in full Christmas mode here, but I would be remiss if I skipped over our 2020 Halloween celebrations. This year has certainly been interesting, and I don't want to miss a chance to celebrate anything... no matter how small. I thought I'd do a quick Throwback Thursday post to share our Halloween weekend!
We actually had a pretty good celebration! Jeremy came up from New Hampshire to spend the weekend with us. Our neighborhood had decided to have a small socially distant "block party" like celebration. There are four houses on our road and we all wanted to do something fun for the kids (two of the families have kids and the other has grandkids). Jeremy was ready for a scenery change to I invited him to join the fun.
Friday night, Jeremy arrived at our house. Eliot was working late at work so it gave Jeremy and me a chance to talk and catch up. We mostly talked about the upcoming election, our thoughts, our fears and how we hoped it would all turn out. I also admired my new snowman from Hobby Lobby that Jeremy picked up for me... the same one that I'd taken a photo of when we went shopping mid-October. (After coming home, I realized that I wanted him, so Jeremy offered to go pick him up for me!) Eventually, Eliot arrived home and we talked a little bit longer before calling it a night.
Saturday morning, we got up and the boys went outside to put our giant Halloween Mickey Pumpkin inflatable from Lowes up. Eliot's and my contribution was going to be having Mickey up by the end of our driveway to use him as a photo backdrop for the kids to take Halloween photos. After they got him set up, we took turns showering and got ready. Then, we watched Halloween movies on tv while we waited for the Halloween festivities to commence that afternoon.
Eliot and I weren't sure exactly what time we were starting so the three of us headed out around 3:00 to check. We met our neighbor up by our Mickey pumpkin inflatable while he was testing out his lawn mower. Two of our neighbors got new riding lawn mowers this year so they decided to do hayrides for the kids around the road and their yards. He told us how much the kids enjoyed our Mickey and that they were more excited about that than the haunted hayride pathway that he'd spent weeks working on. (We all got a good chuckle from that.) We went back inside to stay where it was warm while everyone finished getting ready for the block party.
Around 3:30, everyone started to congregate outside. It was freezing out, so we all bundled up in our warm winter jackets instead of putting on a costume. However, I did wear my Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party face mask (from Park Candy) and my matching headband (from Sew Tangled) so I was festive. The kids were all dressed in their Halloween costumes, and all of the adults wore costumes as well. Of course, everyone's most fashionable 2020 accessory was their face mask. Some of our neighbors even made masks to match their costumes!
The adults talked around the fire pit while the kids ran around and played. We were waiting on a few other kids that the families had invited to join us. In the end, we ended up having around 12 kids, including the 7 kids and grandkids from our road.
One of the other families that joined us was actually a patient that I knew from my time at the chiropractic office! (Apparently, her daughter is best friends with our neighbors' daughter.) As soon as she started talking to me, I recognized her voice. Of course, with everyone wearing Halloween costumes and face masks, we didn't recognize each other until we were directly in front of each other talking! It was nice to meet her husband and daughter and to catch up.
Before we started the activities, the adults had all of the kids gather together to take a photo in front of our giant Mickey inflatable. Jeremy jumped behind the inflatable and made his Mickey Mouse puppet smile for the camera from one of the eyes. Jeremy sounds just like Mickey so he made him talk to the kids for a few minutes. They kept looking up at Mickey in between photos. (I think the younger ones were confused.)
After, we started the afternoon with our Trunk or Treat. I was surprised and how well decorated a few of our neighbors cars were. Eliot and I didn't go crazy with ours. We put our new light up pumpkin in the back of his Jeep, and Jeremy added his Mickey puppet wearing his Sorcerer Mickey costume from Build-A-Bear. We had a little bucket that was completely full of candy. The kids ran down to the end of the road and made quick work of going to each car. They were so excited. We ended up letting them do a second go around because there was still so much candy left over! (They were all very polite and only took a few pieces. I had to keep telling them it was ok to take more!)
We decided to have the costume contest next. One of our neighbors had music playing so it quickly became a dance contest. Only 5 of the kids wanted to do the contest, and contestant number two quickly stole the show with his insanely good dance moves. We were all really impressed. We cheered for all of the kids and the two winners got light up necklaces. Then, the other kids got prizes too.
After that, one of our neighbors started his hayrides. He had a whole set up with the lawn mower and a cart pulled behind it. He rode them down our private road, up his driveway and around his yard before returning to our party central at the end of our dead end road. He took a few kids each time and they were always quick to jump into the cart once he pulled back in. The kids absolutely loved it. They all threw hay at each other and by the end of it, they were all covered.
Next up was pumpkin or donut decorating. One of our other neighbors had bought small pumpkins and Dunkin Donuts. She had a table set up for the kids to decorate their stuff. I'm not sure if any of them painted pumpkins, but they all thoroughly enjoyed the donut decorating... and more importantly, the donut eating!
The kids spent the next hour or so eating candy and running around playing. Jeremy eventually went back to our house because he was cold. When the sun started to set, we all got ready to do the second haunted hayride through the woods. There's a pathway through the woods that connects two of our neighbors houses. Our neighbor had decorated the path with Christmas lights and Halloween decor. All of the adults spread out to either help work the decorations, or jump out and scare the kids.
Eliot and I both manned two of the decorations. All I had to do was attempt to hide behind a tree and push a button. We had a lot of fun, even if the kids weren't very scared. (They gave us a failing grade in the scaring department... but part of that was because it probably wasn't dark enough out yet.) They all still had a blast though.
After that, they had a movie night in our neighbors yard with his outdoor set up. The kids curled into their sleeping bags and tucked in to watch a Halloween movie. Eliot and I said our goodbyes to everyone and headed back to our house. It was way too cold to stay for the movie and we had plans anyways.
We spent a few minutes warming up before the three of us jumped into the car and headed up to Portland. Jeremy wanted to take a quick peek at Target so we did that, then we headed over to Chili's get Eliot's dinner, and we stopped over at Pat's Pizza on the way home to pick up Jeremy's and my dinner. (Jeremy and I both absolutely love Pat's Pizza and we always try to get it when we go home to visit our parents, but there's also one in Scarborough. We usually try to go whenever Jeremy visits us.)
We returned home and decided to watch Disney+ while eating dinner. We started with the new "Once Upon a Snowman" short of how Olaf came to be. Then, we watched "Halloweentown High" so we could watch something festive. After that, we all were exhausted so we headed to bed early.
Sunday, we got up after sleeping in a little. The photos we took the day before didn't come out very good, so Jeremy took a few photos of me and Eliot with Mickey. Then, the boys took him down and moved him down to our yard to dry out. Jeremy visited with us for a little bit longer before heading home.
2020 was definitely a weird celebration, but I'm so glad that our Halloween Block Party was a success. I'm also really glad that Jeremy got to visit us for the festivities! Most important, the kids had a blast and we were able to salvage something fun for them. In fact, the kids had such a good time that we might have to do a block party every year from now on! If we do... we'll definitely have to plan for some fun new additions! I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween too! °o°
No comments:
Post a Comment