A pandemic won’t stop some Okotoks families from celebrating Halloween, although it may look a little different this year.
“I don’t really see the harm in kids going out to trick-or-treat,” said Caylee Brown, who said her children will be going door-to-door.
She said the cold weather will likely mean children are wearing gloves, and their costumes may come with masks that could serve the same purpose as the face coverings students wear in school.
For those doling out treats, she said anyone uncomfortable with opening the door could leave a bowl outside or wear gloves and a mask while handing it out as well.
As far as she’s concerned, if the lights are on it’s fair game.
“When I was growing up in Okotoks the rule was if the lights are on you go to the house, if the lights are off you move to the next,” said Brown. “If people aren’t comfortable and don’t want to hand it out, then don’t turn your lights on.”
Kathy Carter and her family live for Halloween – it’s their favourite day of the year, nearly trumping Christmas when it comes to the décor and excitement level.
“We start decorating right at the beginning of October,” said Carter. “We get people who come from everywhere to see our house.”
She said they’ve pulled out all the stops with their outdoor decorating, including a large coffin built by her husband, where Dracula resides, and an eight-foot animatronic Pennywise the Clown hanging by the front door.
The main difference this year is they won’t be putting on a haunted house in the garage as they have in years past, she said.
“It’s just a lot of work and with everything that’s gone on this year, we thought maybe not,” said Carter. “So no haunted house, but we’re still all set up and we’re going to hand out candy.”
She said the prospect of having her children go around the neighbourhood isn’t cause for any concern, especially since the treats they receive are wrapped in plastic or other packaging and can be wiped down before eating or quarantined for a few days before it’s touched.
With COVID-19 numbers low, she said there isn’t much cause for concern. People who are feeling sick likely won’t be going door-to-door, or opening their doors to others, she said.
“I’m just not worried about it,” said Carter, who is also a health professional who has been on the frontline at a COVID site since the pandemic began.
The excitement of Halloween beats out the level of risk, she said, as long as people follow precautions and look out for one another.
This year, being able to go out and have some fun means even more, she said.
“I think this year it’s even more important to just be able to celebrate these fun occasions that we get, whether it’s Halloween or Christmas or having that little Thanksgiving get-together,” said Carter.
Shelley Duret feels the same way and set out to build up her community during COVID when she came up with her Halloween celebration idea.
“The reason I love Halloween is it’s one of the few times in our society that we get to go around door-to-door and see our neighbours, say hello, and offer something to them or receive something from them,” said Duret. “That’s a really powerful thing.”
In September, she began to wonder what Halloween would look like. Although it was six weeks away, she’d heard rumours of people not participating and knew there would be many who weren’t comfortable with the idea of trick-or-treating.
With two children aged eight and six, she didn’t like the prospect of walking past rows of dark houses to find ones with their lights on, especially if the weather turned out to be cold. So she came up with something unique, and went to the Town of Okotoks website to pull a fire permit.
“We live in a beautiful cul-de-sac, it’s super quiet, with amazing neighbours, and we can follow any COVID regulations that way because we all have our houses we can go into and use our private facilities as we need,” said Duret.
Fire permit in-hand, she did up fliers and sent them to her neighbours to let them know about her Halloween block party idea. The response was encouraging, she said.
One neighbour runs a dance studio and has volunteered her speakers to have music playing, and everyone is contributing candy to individual treat bags or candy bouquets for the children who live on the block.
For those trick-or-treating around the neighbourhood, they’ll fill a large bowl of candy on a table at the entrance to the cul-de-sac for young ghosts and goblins to help themselves to a few pieces, she said.
That way everyone still gets their candy, but it’s about more than that, she said.
“The actual important part, not the candy, still gets to happen for us this year – we still get to have the opportunity to feel connected in a time where we need to foster that so much,” said Duret.
