One of the reasons I love fall so much is Halloween. Especially since I had children. After all, Halloween is the one time of the year that you pretty much give yourself permission to eat junk food. That and I get to raid the children’s goody bags. It’s sad they are getting so much older that they actually notice when the pile gets depleted.
I guess I’ve been too busy just living life and never actually thought my family was creating traditions. It wasn’t until I was asked by Mom Central for the Allan Candy blog tour to write a post about my family’s Halloween traditions that I actually stopped and thought about it. What do you know, we’ve been making family traditions with our kids every since E’s first Halloween.
One of the very things we do every year for Halloween is visit the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. When we lived up Island, we used to drive to a farmer’s market an hour and half away just to climb over their mountain of pumpkins. Then when preschool started we started visiting local farms where picking pumpkins now entails petting farm animals and feeding the chickens.
Deciding what costumes to wear also plays an important part but even in that we had our traditions. When E was two years old we bought a puppy costume at the 2nd hand store. It was adorable. It was fluffy and brown and had a wide bum so the tail wiggled when she walked. Each of my children since wore that costume and when J came along we even found a second puppy costume, slightly different, and both my girls were puppies. O was lucky because for his first three Halloween’s he was all set. It was with great sadness when we finally let those costumes go because they no longer fit.
The biggest part of our Halloween traditions I think has to be our pumpkin carving. Long before kids, hubs and I had fun carving out fancy pumpkins using stencils. A lot of work but it was fun hearing all the wonderful comments on them. Of course, once you have kids you have to give up some of the control and let them do what they are going to do. Hubs and I still reserve ourselves each one pumpkin and let the kids get creative in their own way. And you know what? Some of their pumpkins were pretty inventive.
At first they were hesitant about all the goo but eventually, they came to love it!
Note the Boogie
on the end---->
I love Calvin & Hobbes!
And of course, Halloween, wouldn’t be complete without the candy. Such an important part of the occasion after all. Nowadays it’s even vital that we make sure we hand out not only yummy safe treats but treats that are peanut free.
This year thanks to Allan Candy, I will be handing out their peanut free Halloween Treats in my neighbourhood. A Canadian company, Allan Candy Halloween Treats are all made in Canada and are peanut free. Celebrating their 77th year, their line up includes Allan Intense Jubes & Jellies, Allan Chewy Rascalz and Allan Fruit Buddies. You’ll find these selections at key retailers, including Wal-Mart and Loblaws.
What are some of your family’s Halloween traditions? Did you realize that you’ve been making them all along?
Disclosure – I am participating in the Allan Candy Company program by Mom Central Canada. I received compensation (Candy)for my participation in this campaign. The opinions on this blog are my own.
Those are some pretty sweet pumpkins!
ReplyDeleteWith only one child who's only 2.5, we haven't really solidified any traditions yes. Mostly because she's only just learning that holidays other than her birthday exist, heh.