Category Archives: Eco Friendly Parenting

Halloween is HOW Close?

I’ve been having fun reading on a lot of blog posts about Halloween. Everyone has an opinion. Of course a lot of green bloggers talk about options to make Halloween greener, including the treats.

I have to admit that the Halloween candy is not one area where I’ve concerned myself with whether or not it’s green enough. Organic candies frankly are generally out of my price range for handing out, and I haven’t really seen any locally that would be good for trick or treaters, so I got the usual selection.

I think the biggest challenge to offering anything other than candy, as many suggest, is finding something that appeals to boys and girls, toddlers, elementary school age kids and older kids still wandering the neighborhood trick or treating. It takes a pretty good range of stuff, and non-candy treats often cost more. Just doesn’t really work on my budget.

But I am having fun creating my son’s costume. The fires slowed me down quite a bit, as I spent several days watching the news too intently to even think of grabbing the costume to keep my hands busy. So I’m a little behind but I hope to catch up tonight. I’m hoping to finish my creation of the spikes for his dragon costume. Might even get my husband to rebend the butterfly wings into dragon wings and lightly repaint them. With the paint and all, making it at home is probably not all that green, but it sure is fun and there’s something to be said for the expression of creativity over buying off the rack.

But I do intend to have my kids reuse old buckets or use a pillowcase or other bag we have around the house for trick or treating. The pillowcase is all I ever used and it works really well. Lots of room for candy. I think we even have some smaller cloth bags the kids can use so they don’t have to worry about tripping over them.

Halloween is definitely one of those holidays where I struggle with green. It’s a little tricky to do well at times like this, although I do make sure that decorations and costumes are things that can be reused. Good thing my kids love playing dressup.

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I Gave in on My Daughter’s Halloween Costume

Sometimes you just run out of options, and so for the first time my daughter’s Halloween costume was bought from a store.

She wanted to be Cinderella this year. I’m sure it would be possible to get a pattern for it and sew one at home, but I’m not so sure that my sewing skills are up to that level. Couldn’t find one at the local thrift shops either. I was hoping I could at least go used rather than new, after all.

I even tried to talk her into a “Cinderella in rags” costume since that would allow for a bit more creativity. No go. So we have the basic, store-bought Cinderella dress.

My son is even more challenging. He wants to be a blue dragon. Yes, we have finally come up with a costume idea he likes. My husband has made wings before, so that won’t be too impossible. I can even stitch together a very basic tail. And of course there aren’t any such costumes that we can find to buy anywhere.

I guess I will have to pull out the sewing machine I recently inherited from my Grandma. At least that means it will go faster than my previous, handsewn Halloween costume tidbits. There’s a reason why I always kept them simple in the past.

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Can You Green Your Halloween?

Halloween is coming pretty soon, and I’m thinking on the costumes my kids will wear. I’ve long had the habit of making their costumes at home; it’s fun and it makes for more creative costumes.

homemade halloween costume

Last year was something of an exception, but not in a particularly bad way. My mother made a Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume for my daughter from fabric her mother had been storing for years and years, so all we had to buy was “ruby” slippers. My son wore a lion costume we had been given as a hand-me-down about two years before. It just so happened to fit, and obviously was perfect as a companion to Dorothy.

This year my daughter so far wants to be Rapunzel. That’s easy since she already has a costume for that. Little girls and dressup, what can I say?

But dressing my son up is going to require some inspiration. He doesn’t understand about costumes yet, so won’t give an opinion. I’m just going to have to figure out what I want to do for him, I suppose.

Keeping things green for Halloween can be a bit tricky, as it is for most holidays. But Halloween has been getting more and more commercial in recent years. It amazes me seeing the sheer range of decorations in my neighborhood. It used to be that having a couple faux tombstones on the lawn was plenty. Not anymore.

I must confess that Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine. It’s just fun. No major family obligations. It’s about having a little fun for my family, and seeing how cute the kids can dress up around the neighborhood.

And of course the candy. Not very green, but there it is.

Halloween Costumes

Making costumes at home just requires a little creativity. Look around at what you have and think about the costumes you would like to make. There are plenty of websites that have tips on making homemade halloween costumes.

Halloween Decorations

One of the fun things we did this year was to take some seeds from last year’s pumpkins, and grow our own pumpkins for this year. We got two good ones this year, oddly enough from the pumpkin plant that grew in a random part of the yard, nowhere near where we had planted the original seeds. The ones we did plant came up with a single good plant, and its pumpkin looks like bugs are getting it already. We doubt it will make it.

But growing your own pumpkins from year to year is still a fun way to do it.

You can also make your own decorations. For pretty much my entire childhood, one of my mother’s primary Halloween decorations for the inside of the house was a huge stack of bats she had cut out of construction paper. They’re very easy to make, and I really wish I had a template to post. But if you can draw a rough bat shape, that’s all you really need.

You can also download some Halloween music and play it to set the right atmosphere, if you like.

Halloween Treats

Finding organic Halloween candy can be quite a challenge, and you have to expect that if you have a child out trick or treating that they will bring back all kinds of candy. There’s nothing to do for it, and my own philosophy is to let the kids enjoy it.

If organic candy is hard to find in your local area, you may be able to search Amazon and other websites to see what you can get. You may not have the selection that you would get just by heading out to your local stores, but it might be a bit better for the kids. Probably not much, since it is still candy.

If you want to add to the fun, try playing little jokes on the trick or treaters. Nothing serious, but do things like offer rocks from your garden, onions and so forth instead of candy. This is something my mother is notorious for in her neighborhood, even though she really does give out candy. It’s just fun seeing the look on the kids’ faces at first.

There’s a lot you can do to enjoy Halloween while keeping it relatively green and budget friendly. Perhaps the key tip is to simply keep it simple.

 

Come Participate in Walk to School Day

Walk to School Day (October 3) is an easy one for me to participate in – we do it daily anyhow, rain or shine. It’s a part of International Walk To School Month, and I hope your local schools are participating.

Walking to school used to be pretty much the norm. If the distance was at all reasonable, you walked there. If it was a bit far, you might have biked there. I know I did that until I went to a school across town and had to take the school bus.

But just look at the front of most schools now when school is about to start and when it gets out. It’s often packed with the cars of parents picking up or dropping off their kids. In 2001, only 16% of kids walked to school. That number just amazes and saddens me.

Of course, what’s worse is how short a distance some parents feel makes it necessary to drive to school. I’m talking a matter of blocks. Yet walking is a great exercise for you and your kids, and the time it takes is wonderful for just chatting.

I’d love to hear from other parents who are able to walk their kids to school, either regularly, or just tomorrow. Does your school do anything special for it?

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