3: Halloween 2020

I am doing NaBloPoMo this month. 30 blog posts in 30 days. Come join me. #nablopomo2020

Jon used to be a huge Halloween fan. Me? Not so much. I didn’t grow up celebrating Halloween (in Germany, November, 1 – All Saint’s Day – is a national holiday, but we didn’t celebrate Halloween with costumes or trick-or-treating, although it’s been adopted as a custom over the last few year). I am not much into dressing up (too much effort, ha) and we never had costume parties to go to, so what’s the point? 

I am not into horror movies and I think for the first few years of our relationship, Jon had a really hard time with that. He tried to get me to watch all the scary Halloween movies with him, but honestly, I just can’t. I am afraid that they give me nightmares and I really don’t have to have that kind of unnecessary stress on top of everything else that life throws at you.

I am not judging. If it’s your thing, you do you. Although I really wonder sometimes what’s wrong with the people that come up with the plots for horror movies. 

We still had a nice Halloween. I do enjoy the neighborhood decorations and went for a nice run through our neighborhood on Saturday morning to capture some of the decorations that people set up. Skeletons seem to be the big theme in the last few years, and people get really creative with it, too. 


Pandemic theme. With masks, of course. (And yes, I’ll take that as a political statement.)


Friendly waves.


We’re all in this together.

There weren’t any trick-or-treaters on our street this year. I didn’t expect any. Kids/families mostly go to the streets a couple of blocks away, where the bigger houses are (expecting full size candy, I suppose). It was a circus around there last year (people usually use our street to park and then walk over there), but I don’t know how many people participated in any trick-or-treating activities this year (our street was pretty quiet), as our city discouraged regular Halloween activities. 

Jon and I made a big pot of vegetable stew for dinner, lit some candles and watched “The Neverending Story” in the evening. It’s not a Halloween movie per se, but it has a great message and some “slightly scary” parts to it, so I think it counts (and we both hadn’t seen it since we were kids).

I know that if you have kids, this must have been a much more difficult holiday this year than for us childfree people.

Where you able to enjoy Halloween this year?


(Yes, this is a post to distract you from the fact that it’s election day, which comes with its own set of horrors, I suppose. Let’s hope for a happy end.)

  1. We still had a really nice holiday despite Covid precautions. I helped organize a treat hunt on our block. The kids each got to look for 5 cauldrons or orange eggs and a treat bag w/ their name on it. It was from 3-5 and we did a costume parade around the block at the start. So for our shy little guy, it was perfect. He had a blast running around in his dino costume and searching for eggs/cauldrons. He’s not big on candy so Phil gets to eat most of it. We didn’t hand out candy but barely saw any activity on our street so I don’t think many were out trick or treating. One house on our block had a cool treat shoot – the candy came out of the mouth of a ghost. So that was pretty creative/fun!

    I’m very similar to you when it comes to Halloween – I don’t like scary movies, I enjoyed dressing up as a child but not as an adult. It is more fun with a child in your life, though. He loved his costume and we read lots of Halloween books throughout the month.

    1. I am glad you were able to have a nice Halloween with Paul! I totally get that even though you might not be a fan of the holiday (anymore), it’s totally different with kids!

  2. Hahaha, I love that you try to disctract with this post…. not working tho…..
    Also, I’ve never seen Neverending Story, even though I was a huge fan of Limahl, who sings the title song….
    I feel, I really need to catch up on all these movie classics.
    xo

    1. You have never seen The Neverending Story???? There is one more thing I didn’t know about you… go remedy that, ASAP!

  3. Nope. I bought Jack a pack of Reece’s Peanutbutter Cups, but that was it. Not even one trick or treater!

    1. Oh bummer. Do you usually get a lot of kids?

  4. I never did celebrate Halloween either and I can only agree about the horror movie part. Would you like to meet a person thinking up a horror movie? I really don’t – that’s probably even more scary than the movie itself.
    Let hope the political real life horror story is going to end today.

    1. Yeah, no. I don’t want to meet a person that comes up with horror movie plots, thankyouverymuch. There must be something wrong and twisted about them.

  5. I was never into Halloween until I met my stepkids. Then it’s a blast to see their experience. My youngest stepson is officially Too Old for Halloween but we walked the dog together just as trick or treating was starting so we got to people watch. My oldest stepson is Mr. Halloween and he came home with a huge candy haul. We set up a candy chute to pass out candy and most of our neighbors did something similar. I think it was the most normal & safe holiday we’ve had so far in the pandemic.

    1. I am so glad to hear that you had a somewhat “normal” holiday and that you were able to enjoy it with your step kids!

  6. We decided that trick or treating was too risky for our family this year, but the kids were very concerned about not getting candy, so we hung up a treat filled pinata in our yard and the kids got to smash it with a baseball bat. The kids also requested soda and pizza. We watched a scary (PG rated!) movie with them, and everybody was happy. I generally feel sad for my kids for missing out on SO MUCH this year, but sometimes I lose sight of the fact that they are really quite resilient and adapt quickly.

    1. Love the creativity! And yes, kids fare much better than us adults, TBH.

  7. I’ve never been much for Halloween either! I think because it was a holiday that wasn’t looked upon kindly, growing up in a very religious family, haha. I have gotten dressed up for work the past few years because everyone gets really into it. But not this year!

    I went to my mom’s for the night to help her pass out candy. We sat outside, wore masks, and sanitized between each trick-or-treater. We saw around 27 kiddos so it was a good night for us! Apparently, though, there are way more kiddos out normally. So hopefully next year we’ll get to experience a “real” Halloween!

  8. Definitely not a costume person… my creativity quotient is nil.
    But I LOVE The Neverending Story! Watched it repeatedly as a kid… and drove my brother nuts renting it repeatedly from the video store. (Gosh, I’m old…) I might have to download it now for some nostalgia. Thanks for reminding me! :)

  9. I wore my lemur onesie to work and then forgot that it was Halloween once I got home because we turned our porch light out and didn’t get a single knock!

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