It’s 5pm on Halloween and boy is it different this year! Our girls are “not” going trick-or-treating. Period. After reading all the data, speaking with doctors (both theirs and mine) and talking with each other, Mostly Wonderful and I thought it was far too risky to venture out this spooky season.
Halloween is a huge thing in our neighborhood, but truth be told, we were feeling uncertain about how it would play out. I was worried about a couple of things.
First, I didn’t think parents would push for medical masks if kids were already wearing Halloween masks. As the tri-state areas numbers continue to rise, I still feel very hypervigilant about not only putting masks on my own kids, but I get frustrated when I see other parents and children either not wearing a mask correctly or foregoing it altogether. As a legally blind parent, that’s a big issue for me because I can’t see somebody’s face until I am literally right on top of them. That means I need to rely on my husband or the kids to keep their eyes peeled to let me know who’s wearing what while social distancing. It’s exhausting.
Secondly – what about the candy? I heard some parents were setting up a chute made of long cardboard tubes or plastic piping, then sending candy down the tubes. Seems like an awful lot of work for one lousy Snickers bar. No offense, Snickers.
Then I heard school parents were getting groups of kids together for scavenger hunts with candy in their backyards or possibly a clothesline in the yard with candy attached. Again, points for creativity but I don’t even like to use a clothesline to dry my clothes. I doubt I would use it to pass around candy.
And then there was the “great” glove debate. If we had decided to do the normal door to door route should we have the girls trick or treat in disposable gloves? Should I make them wait 72 hours before opening their bags so any germs would be killed if they were on the wrappers? All the fun associated with the night just seems clouded by too much anxiety.
So far, I have had a total of 3 trick-or-treaters. THREE. And not one of them or their parents had a mask on. Now that is some scary you know what!
At least I feel like we were prepared. We had custom lawn signs made about a month ago that said “Happy Halloween, Candy In Driveway.”Then for the past three weekends the girls and I packed individual draw string treat bags. The CDC recommend this idea as a way for families to grab and go maintaining a social distance.
Mostly Wonderful was outside bright and early to wrap our front lawn in Halloween crime tape that said: “Caution Zombie Quarantine” making a perimeter around our house. We didn’t even want people on our front stoop or touching the doorbell. Poor Amazon had to throw packages over the tape just to make their deliveries to us this afternoon. Shout out to my Amazon delivery peeps! Man, I love you guys!
The girls still had a pretty fun morning. Of course, they had some surprises waiting for them when they woke up. I got them a few Barbies and other little trinkets. Then we carved pumpkins. We ordered out lunch and tonight we will be doing candy corn bowling and an indoor scavenger hunt. Our night will be capped off with a screening of Hocus Pocus before bed and ice cream.
There were times during the day that the kids became a little sad, but their dad and I tried to explain that this is just one Halloween in their lifetimes. Better days are coming. Man, I hope to God they are coming. We need them and fast because parenting in a global pandemic is certainly scary stuff.
Wishing all of Blind Motherhood’s followers a happy & safe Halloween in Quarantine!
