Yes, I know it’s March. I’m going to post about Halloween anyway. I never got around to posting any of our Halloween pictures at the time and we got a lot of questions about how we handled Halloween on the road. Our apologies for taking a few months to answer them, but better late than never, right? If nothing else, take a few minutes to scroll through the cute pictures of kids in costume. If we had posted them back on Halloween, no one would have noticed them among all the other pictures of cute kids in costumes. But a Halloween post in March? That will get everyone’s attention. We couldn’t have planned it better.
Choosing Costumes
While we were in Sweden last summer, Peter got a Spiderman costume that he had been wishing for as an early birthday present. He asked if he could wear it and be Spiderman for Halloween. Of course we said yes. Then when we were visiting friends in Missouri, Emelie’s friend offered her a Supergirl costume that she had outgrown. She wanted to wear it to play superheroes with Peter, and then she decided she wanted to wear it for Halloween too. So we had two out of three costumes completely hassle-free – and cost-free too! Looking at Spiderman and Supergirl, we knew our only choice was to find Micah a Batman costume. Our Superhero Trio was complete!
Pumpkin Contest
Our campground, Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails, had a full schedule of family Halloween activities planned! According to the schedule, the day started with pumpkin carving. When we arrived the carving was canceled due to insurance liability issues (which, for future reference, is probably something you should check before publicizing an event) but they had plenty of paint, stickers, and craft supplies for decorating pumpkins. The event was free and the campground supplied pumpkins for all the kids, so it’s hard to complain. The kids had a great time and left their pumpkins there to dry. We didn’t even know there was a contest, but when we went back later to pick up their pumpkins, there was a 3rd place ribbon on Emelie’s. Fun bonus!
Trick-or-Treating
How do you go trick-or-treating at a campground? We wondered the same thing. We assumed that we would need to drive to a nearby neighborhood to give the kids chances to trick-or-treat. The campground was one step ahead of us on that one! A specific day and time range was designated for trick-or-treating. Everyone staying in the campground was given an orange pumpkin picture that they could choose to display if they welcomed trick-or-treaters. It was as simple as that. Many people were sitting outside with their candy bowls, enjoying the warm, sunny afternoon as well as the parades of costumed children. Other times, they got to knock on doors and say “trick-or-treat” as long as they saw the pumpkin sign. We weren’t sure what to hope for, so we told the kids to focus on having fun and not on how much candy they got. But there were plenty of people staying at this rather large campground that weekend, and lots of them thought it was fun to give out candy. The kids easily filled the buckets we had with us, and truth be told, they still haven’t managed to eat all the candy yet. It’s a goal to eat it all up before Easter candy arrives!
Halloween Dance and Costume Contest
After trick-or-treating, we grabbed a quick dinner before heading back to the family lodge to end the day with a Halloween dance and costume contest. After teaching the kids how to do the electric slide and dancing to obvious choices like “Monster Mash” and “The Addams Family” (which is actually really hard to dance to) it was time for the costume contest. They broke it down by age groups and then used the “loudest cheer” method of deciding the winners. The Lindstrom kids are lucky enough to have a mom with a really big mouth, and all three were in the top three for their age groups and won prizes. (The 2 and under category was declared a tie for first since there were only two and babies in costumes are just too adorable to choose between. Both were completely unaware of what was going on.)
It was a very festive Halloween – probably much more so than we would have had if we lived in a house in a neighborhood. We weren’t sure quite how, or even if, we would celebrate Halloween on the road, but I’d say it worked out very well! We are so thankful to the staff at Soledad Canyon for providing their guests with such a full and memorable day!
How did other full-time traveling families celebrate Halloween? Tell us about it in the comments – if you can remember back that far!
Oh, Wow! That looks like so much fun for your kids! I had thought children would have needed to go to a neighborhood, so its nice to see at least one park being pro-active about the situation. Such cute superheroes you have. I feel safer already with them out protecting us 🙂
It really was a lot of fun! We’ve found that most Thousand Trails parks have activity directors and there are regular activities offered whether it’s a holiday or not. But there are often festivities around holidays, the Super Bowl, Spring Break in Texas and other events! Before we started traveling I had completely misunderstood how much of a community feel you get at many campgrounds! It’s really special!