We celebrated Halloween this year, the COVID way – at home and just us five. It’s ok though, we made it fun and there were many laughs and of course, lots of sweeties.

We ordered costumes online this year as in Melbourne everything has been shut down for the past four months. Two seperate online shops – one in Oz and one from the US. One arrived and the other did not. A couple of days ago I started to look into the missing costume (Queen Guinevere) and realised we had been shammed. The FedEx tracking number was a fake, the website had been taken down, and the phone number had been canceled. Sigh. Of course, in a time when everyone is shopping online it would be so easy to set up a fake seasonal busy, take everyone’s money and then shut it all down. We’ve reported the fraud to our bank – here’s hoping we get our money back. 🤞🏻

Leaving us one costume short, the kids had to improvise and fast – we had just 24 hours left! “Honey” from Renegades emerged. The girls worked to make little “bees” from pipe cleaners and pom poms to decorate her arms, blonde wig and dress. It didn’t take much but she came together and matched the fan art well enough.

We had another unique character called “Violet,” from a short story written by Miss 10 titled, Nature Girls. My son dressed as Joel from Love and Monsters. Our little dog, Jack, even wore a hand made pumpkin cape created by my capable seamstress, Miss 10.

We hid chocolate around the house with a ghostly version of an Easter egg hunt. This was actually our second go at Halloween like this. The first time was while travelling in Turkey with friends, feeling bad that the kids were missing out on their annual antics. (Halloween must go on wherever you are.)

Later in the evening we laughed and agreed it was a really fun day although very different to previous years. Our neighbours decorated their homes but there was no sound emanating from hundreds of costumed children running through the streets, no greeting strangers whilst knocking on their doors and asking for a “trick or treat”, and no friends – just us.

We managed a laundry list of other festive activities to create build up like playing Ghost in the Graveyard, Halloween word searches, making a chocolate Rice Krispie grave covered in marshmallow webs, we decorated the house, we studied the history of the holiday, we watched Halloween films, and listened to themed music, etc.

Done and dusted! Hooray for November and Thanksgiving – my personal fave. I just need to turn up the air con, draw the curtains and watch a fire place on the television. Yep, we need to improvise a bit to make it feel like home. Haha!