Each year in Australia, Halloween gets bigger and bigger. It’s a fun holiday for the whole family. Although some disparage Halloween as an American festivity, it actually has its roots in the Gaelic holiday of Samhain.
Wherever it comes from, Halloween in Australia is not going away. Here are fun ways to celebrate Halloween with friends and family. If trick or treating isn’t your jam, there are plenty of other ways to celebrate on October 31st.
Halloween costumes
Don’t stress about Halloween costumes. It’s easy to whip something up or even recycle the Book Week costume. There’s also plenty of costumes you can buy or rent from local department stores or online costume websites. If you have craft / sewing skills, then put your skills to work to make homemade DIY Halloween costumes for your kids.
Trick or treating
One of the most popular activities for Halloween is trick-or-treating. You can either keep it local and stay in your suburb (great way to meet your neighbours) or go to well-known “treat streets” that attract crowds.
You can usually tell which houses are participating in trick-or-treating as they might have signs, orange balloons or in our case, a scary hand hanging out of the mailbox. For safety, escort your kids around the neighbourhood and makes sure that they accept treats that are individually wrapped.
Drop off Boo Bags
Instead of going around trick or treating, how about doing the reverse? Create a Boo Bag filled with fun Halloween treats and leave it on the doorstep for a friend, family member or neighbour. Ring the doorbell or text and let them know it’s there.
Decorate your house
Get in the Halloween mood and decorate the outside of your house for families to enjoy while they walk or drive by. Make some ghosts, decorate with pumpkins and enjoy the spookiness. You can also decorate rooms in your own home and make your own haunted house for your kids to enjoy.
Halloween events
Attend a local Halloween event. Every year, there are more Halloween events catering to families. You can choose from scary movies at local cinemas, trick or treating at local shopping centres or Halloween-theme nights at kids play centres.
Take your dog for a Halloween walk
Get your family dressed up in Halloween costumes and take your pet (costume optional) for a walk.
Halloween hunt
Instead of trick or treating, organise a Halloween hunt in your house and/or backyard. Think Easter Egg Hunt only it’s Halloween. You can buy sweets, stickers, little toys and hide them and then let your kids run around and find them.
Glow in the dark hunt
Want to turbo-charge the fun? Do a Halloween hunt in the dark using glow-in-the-dark items for kids to find. Think glow-in-the-dark necklaces, bracelets, wands, headbands and stickers. You can even buy Elmer’s Glow in the Dark glue to add to existing things you have at home to make them glow.
Organise a Halloween party at home
You might want to invite a group of friends or family and celebrate Halloween at home with treats, Halloween games, a Halloween parade, a Halloween movie and more.
Carve a pumpkin
This is the year to learn how to carve a Halloween pumpkin. We’ve spotted whole orange pumpkins perfect for carving at local supermarkets. If you don’t want to buy a pumpkin, use oranges. Buy a whole bag of oranges and try carving different expressions into their faces. For younger kids, let them use foam stickies or googly eyes to make fun faces. When you’re finished playing, just cut up the oranges to eat!
Take Halloween photos
Get the whole family dressed up in Halloween costumes and then take some family selfies. Make sure you dress your pet as well.
Halloween Tik Toks
If you’re a Tik Tok family, stay in costume and make some fun Halloween Tik Tok videos. Get your music and dance routines sorted and start filming. How about recreating “Thriller”?
Halloween pinata
Make your kids work for their candy by filling a pinata with Halloween treats. Let them take turns bashing the pinata until it breaks.
Listen to Halloween music
Spin the Halloween tunes this year. Whether you’re having a family dance party or a karaoke night, choose from a great selection of music. We’ve put together a Spotify Halloween playlist with some of our favourite songs inspired by Halloween.
Make Halloween food
Cook with your kids and make some spooky food. Yes, there can be lots of sugary treats available around Halloween but encourage kids to enjoy a few sweets and then switch to some healthy options.
Here’s some creative food options for Halloween listed on the Woolies website including ghost Halloween pizzas, crunchy noodle spiders, Redback Spider Dip and Slimy Swamp Smoothie. On the Coles website, you’ll find mummy sausage rolls, Monster burgers, spooky fruit kebabs, spooky sushi balls and a ghost milkshake.
Halloween craft & games
If you prefer to organise a Halloween party at home, jump onto the Newy with Kids Halloween Pinterest board for loads of ideas for crafts and games. There’s lots of ideas including bobbing for apples, donut eating race, costume ideas, Halloween bingo and skeleton puzzles.
Play Stupid Deaths
If you have older kids, play Stupid Deaths, the perfect game for Halloween. In this game, players have to guess whether a stupid death is real or made up. Read Newy with Kids full review.
Watch a Halloween film
Spend some spooky family time watching scary movies together in honour of Halloween. You’ll find a selection to choose from on Netflix and Disney+. Some of our favourites include The Addams Family, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Casper, Coco, Corpse Bride, ET, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, Gremlins, Hocus Pocus, Hocus Pocus 2, Hotel Transylvania, Monsters Inc, Scooby Do, The Addams Family, The Curse of Bridge Hollow, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hubie Halloween and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Younger kids will enjoy Room on the Broom, Spookley the Square Pumpkin or Super Monsters: Vida’s First Halloween or Dreamworks Spooky Stories. Whatever movie you watch, pair it with some ghoulish green popcorn.
Read some Halloween kids books
For a spooky read on Halloween, read some books. Some of our favourites include:
- Florentine and Pig and the Spooky Forest Adventure by Eva Katzler – There’s a monster on the loose, and Florentine and Pig are determined to catch it! And what will they need for their monster-catching expedition? Binoculars? Torch? Super-scrummy supper? CHECK!
- Sounds Spooky by Christopher Cheng and illustrated by Sarah Davis – Filled with onomatopoeia this book with a delightfully spooky twist will have young readers listening for those spooky sounds and chanting, ‘What’s that noise that I can hear? I’m not scared!’
- The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon by Aaron Blabey – Life is cursed for the townsfolk of Twee. The ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon haunts their every waking hour and they’ve had enough! But then one day, the brave and practical young Herbert Kettle has the most extraordinary idea . . .
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler – The witch and her cat fly happily over forests, rivers and mountains on their broomstick until a stormy wind blows away the witch’s hat, bow and wand. They are retrieved by a dog, a bird and a frog, and each animal asks for a ride on the broom. They climb on, one after the next, until the broom is so heavy that it snaps in two! What will happen next as they tumble into a bog and meet a greedy dragon?
- What’s in the Witch’s Kitchen by Nick Sharratt – The witch has hidden a trick and a treat in her magical kitchen cupboards! Which one you find depends on how you open the doors. Whether it’s frogspawn or popcorn, lollipops or rabbit plops, there are hilarious rhymes to discover inside in this innovative new novelty book from Nick Sharratt. Age 0+
- Mr Tickle and the Scary Halloween by Roger Hargreaves – Ever since Little Miss Scary moved to town, Halloween had become really scary. Scare your pants off scary! But Mr. Tickle has a plan to make this year different – a ticklishly, tricky plan! Watch out little Miss Scary, there’s someone behind you!
- Halloween in Christmas Hills by Karen Tayleur and illustrated by Heath McKenzie – This is a very Aussie Halloween book.When Miles Cameron was allowed to go trick or treating for the first time, everyone warned him to stay away from Stingy Jacks house. If only he had listened. Halloween is here to stay! And this book taps into the growing interest Aussie kids have in this holiday. ‘Halloween in Christmas Hills’ reminds people that this holiday is actually Celtic in origin not American. Age 5+.
- Cats on the Run by Ged Gilmore – Although not strictly a Halloween book, it does contain magic and foul-smelling witches who have abducted the two feline heroes of this story, Will Tuck and Ginger. This chapter book is a funny read for kids aged 8 to 12 or any adults who want a good laugh.