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Let The Ghoul Times Roll – Ways your family can celebrate Halloween throughout October
In case the plug is pulled on trick-or-treating, Biz X has put together some fun things to do for Halloween in lieu of going house to house. Plus, we’ll fill you in on some activities and events going on throughout the entire month of October and offer suggestions for things to do at home on your own time.
No matter what the situation turns out to be, or what your kids are in to, we’re sure you’ll find something here for your children and the entire family to keep everyone’s spirits high this Halloween!
Be The Master Of Disguise
Whether or not trick-or-treating is allowed this year, children always love to play dress up! And since they have all been used to wearing masks for COVID-19 protocols at school and when out in the community, now is the perfect time to make mask wearing fun.
For all your costume and decoration props check out The Party Warehouse’s seasonal Halloween pop-up store, Halloween Headquarters, located this year at 4326 Walker Road in Windsor (right next to HomeSense).
“We have everything you might need for Halloween,” indicates Tina Merrifield, Manager of The Party Warehouse and Halloween Headquarters. “To start, we have hundreds of different costumes for everyone including infants, toddlers, kids, teens and adults, from popular movies and all kinds of different themes.”
Merrifield also tells Biz X that the Marvel and DC Comics superhero costumes have been especially popular, along with costumes from the “Descendants” movies.
“Then there’s always your classic favourite horror movie costumes like Pennywise, Jason, Michael Myers and more,” says Merrifield. “We also have lots of family-friendly and family-themed costume sets where kids and adults can all dress up together like different characters from movies, like ‘Toy Story’, ‘Star Wars’, etcetera.”
Halloween Headquarters (which has popped up around Windsor every Halloween for the past 15 years) also carry lots of decorations for your home inside and out as well as Halloween-themed party supplies like cups, plates and serving dishes.
“What’s been really popular the last couple of years are the animated props,” Merrifield explains. “Some of them are quite big, over six feet tall, featuring scary clowns, grim reapers and skeletons that move and talk when they detect motion. We have a lot of cool videos on our Facebook page of these animated props because they really are something unique!” (Refer to: Facebook.com/partywarehouse1).
The Party Warehouse and their staff of 10 managed to stay open during much of the pandemic with curbside pickup and online ordering.
“We are following the guidelines set out by the province and the City of Windsor to help keep our customers and staff safe,” Merrifield states. “Staff check their temperature every day when they arrive, along with wearing masks and sanitizing their hands regularly. We have installed barriers at our checkouts and offer sanitizer to our customers at the door, along with contactless shopping through our online store.”
The hours of operation for Halloween Headquarters are Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. To browse their costume selection and decorations visit online.
Home Sweet Haunted Home
In case you can’t go out for Halloween, here are some great activities to do with the kids at home.
Even if no trick-or-treaters visit, decorate the house anyway! And if you can’t go door-to-door, dress-up regardless and show off your costumes (hopefully from The Party Warehouse as mentioned in the section above) on Zoom. Why not host a virtual costume contest with your child’s friends and out of town family members?
You can bake with your children and whip up some spooky sweets at home like chocolate cinnamon skeleton cookies, Rice Krispies mummy squares, ghost brownies, red velvet vampire cupcakes and more. Just Google “Fun, Halloween-inspired recipes” for a ton of suggestions.
Don’t forget there are plenty of local bakeries where you can order sweet treats to bring home for all to enjoy any night of the week. It will be love at first bite once you sink your teeth in these eerie edibles!
As well, you can have a scary movie night with the kids and make your own homemade Halloween popcorn (add cheddar cheese seasoning to make it orange) and build a fort out of your living room furniture.
Another idea — if it’s not too cold outside — is to build a bonfire (if permitted in your area), roast marshmallows and tell scary, ghost stories.
And now this brings us to our next featured business that sells art supplies so your child(ren) can express themselves and turn his/her imagination into something productive!
Let The Little Monsters Get Crafty
For kids who are artistically inclined, Katrina Rutter, Owner of Beatnik Art Supplies — located at 224 Erie Street West in Windsor — has all sorts of Halloween craft ideas.
“I’m a ‘if it sits still — it can be painted’ kinda gal,” Rutter comments. “You can paint a Halloween image on almost anything — buckets, canvas, pillows, pillowcases, shoes, masks, clothing, notebooks, glasses, mugs, door mats — the only real limit is your imagination; and if that’s a problem, there is always Pinterest.”
Rutter also says a simple witch hat can be made fabulous with posca paint pens (available at Beatnik Art Supplies), which allow you to paint spider webs, flowers, eyes, charms or anything you want right onto the hat — it’s as easy as writing with a pen!
“A wooden toolbox can be transformed into a Halloween cutlery caddy by painting pumpkins and candy corn on it, red handprints in acrylic paint on your storm door can help scare trick or treaters, while it scrapes off easily with a razor,” explains Rutter. “You can add polymer clay to chopsticks for cool Harry Potter-like wands. You can even simply cut out bats from black paper and tape them to your window for a really cool look at night.”
Operating since 2018, Beatnik Art Supplies specializes in fun polymer clay pins, which can make for a great Halloween craft project.
“Polymer clay is easy to mould with simple tools like your fingers and toothpicks and can be baked to harden in a home oven,” says Rutter. “We sell the polymer in lots of pretty colours and we are happy to give our customers tips and advice and even have some project sheets available.”
Although they don’t sell the jewellery components, they are available next door at Culture Shock Bead Co.
Rutter opened Beatnik Art Supplies because she and her son, Julian Pawlaczyk (and only employee) are both artists and noticed there was no other art supply store in town. They offer a wide variety of products including paints, pencils, charcoal, inks, calligraphy supplies, markers, paint markers, pens, brushes, art paper, canvases gold leaf, printmaking supplies, epoxy and resin moulds, paint by numbers, art themed puzzles and more!
Parenting Biz feature story continues on PAGE 34
(Please note the “Windsor Zombie Walk” takes place on Saturday, October 16 and not the day before as mentioned in this feature story on page 38).
