By Jenny Ryan
Originally, when I was asked to write a blog post about Halloween, I was really excited to talk about how the celebration builds community, serves as a conduit for neighborly interaction, and underscores the importance of a walkable neighborhood. I was going to write about the importance of Halloween in children’s lives - how trick or treating can influence young attitudes toward family, neighbors, and the environment and public spaces in their community. These community experiences are crucial in the cognitive and social development of young children. Neighborhoods have a profound impact on children because they help define parents’ abilities to create safe, healthy, and nurturing environments.
As I write this, the CDC and local health authorities have recommended against traditional trick or treating and large Halloween parties as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to redefine how we celebrate together. How will social distancing affect the community building and celebration associated with Halloween?
I feel very fortunate that my family lives in a neighborhood that has the ideal urban design for a safe public space. There are doors and porches close to the street, a density of buildings, sidewalks, inviting tree lawns, and good lighting. These elements provide not just a comfortable environment for trick or treating, but for our daily lives as we move through our public spaces. They create livable, walkable communities and draw our neighbors together, not necessarily a good thing in a time of social distancing.
Our street, including our block and the two adjacent blocks, has become an annual destination as kids from all over the City come to our neighborhood to celebrate Halloween. Normally, my block is transformed on Halloween. The street is closed to traffic creating a vibrant public space for visiting trick or treaters and residents alike. Neighbors gather around firepits as kids run up and the down the middle of the street savoring their temporary freedom.
It’s unlikely that will be the situation this Halloween, but how do we have a safe Halloween?
With a little planning and design, neighborhoods can celebrate Halloween safely together through creative approaches to giving out candy and other socially distant communal activities.
Giving candy to trick or treaters can be turned into a game with the help of some DIY inventions. Innovative modifications such as Halloween chutes can bridge the social distance with items around the house such as a gift wrap cardboard roll and some decorative tape which can be used to create a fun way for trick or treaters to get candy from a safe distance. Or you could be a little more ambitious like one of my neighbors who is toying with the idea of a candy catapult. When I looked up candy catapults online, I was surprised to learn it was a good STEM activity for kids.
Candy can be given from behind a decorated table or plexiglass divider. Maybe design a spooky panel divider where candy comes out of an opening that’s a monster’s mouth. Or leave individual candy bags on front steps (naively hoping kids will adhere to the honor system and not dump the whole sweet supply into their pillowcases.)
But Halloween is so much more than candy. Think costume parties and haunted houses, just don’t think of them taking place inside. Now is the time to embrace the Norwegian concept of friluftsliv which translates roughly to “open-air living”, the idea of enjoying activities outside even in colder weather. Holding socially distant activities outside offers a natural advantage in the pandemic because people can avoid enclosed spaces where the virus spreads more easily. In the context of Halloween, friluftsliv can mean neighborhood strolls with friends looking at Halloween decorations. One of my neighbors sent an invitation to everyone on the block to share a ghost story to be recorded on a website for neighbors to listen to as they walk around the block looking at Halloween decorations. Or consider having a neighborhood candy scavenger hunt, or a Halloween parade for the kids to show off their costumes and adults can toss candy to the kids as they walk by (maybe this is a time to use that candy catapult).
I’m hopeful that this year my neighborhood will still transform our block into a safe public space by hosting a socially distant block party, maybe with marked circles on the ground 6 feet apart for those firepits. (Did I mention there’s even a special Norwegian word, utepils, for drinking a beer outdoors? That is my kind of culture.)
By using some planning, design, and creativity, Halloween can be a safe and manageable celebration for everyone and will definitely create singularly spooky memories for years to come.