Halloween Safety

There are a lot of myths surrounding Halloween and the dangers of trick o’ treating.  The story most of us are used to is the razor blades in the apples.  This year’s flavor is fentanyl in candy.  The reality is all of these stories come from urban legends or vaguely related news stories.  In fact, a study in 2000 found that since 1959, there have been 80 cases of Halloween candy tampering in the United States.  All but 10 of those were found to be hoaxes.  Of those 10, the children only had minor injuries.

While we don’t need to Xray our candy, precautions should be taken to ensure the safety of all the kids out and about on Halloween night.

Porch Light

An old-fashioned rule that still holds true!  When the porch light is out, they are out of candy.

Be Seen

Always bring a flashlight or glow sticks for your children to hold.  You can also make sure your kids are lit up with reflectors on their costumes or light up shoes.  The majority of us will be taking our kids out during the night time.  And it is far too easy for kids to be in dark costumes to not be seen by oncoming motorist.

Careful of Candles and Jack-o-lanterns

A lot of costumes may include wigs, tool, or other very flammable material.  We know there will be jack-o-lanterns out on Halloween night.  Make sure to have strict rules with your children so they know not to go near an open flame on someone’s front porch.

Stay Away from Homemade Treats

While a nice gesture, homemade treats can contain allergens or ingredients that your children may not be able to eat.  Always go for packaged items.  And no, it is not possible to inject drugs into candy with a needle without you noticing.

Remove Makeup and Adhesive Before Bed

Between the excitement and the candy, getting your kids to wind down at the end of the night can be a challenge.  But we know, once they crash, they will crash hard!  Make sure you use makeup remover to get rid of all makeup or body paint before they collapse in a heap on their beds.  Many costume adhesives can also cause rashes if left on for too long.

Stranger Danger

There is a hilarious bit of irony for telling your children not to take candy from strangers, but then have an entire holiday dedicated to doing just that!  While we encourage interacting with strangers on Halloween night, stranger danger is still very real. A good rule for Halloween night is “no entering a person’s home.”  If their home is set up as a haunted house, they must enter with a parent. 

Keep a Cell Phone for Older Kids

Kids reach that certain age and they want to go out and get candy with their friends.  If this is the year for your child, it is always a good idea to make sure they have a cell phone.  See if your phone has a location app on it so you can track where your children are in the neighborhood.

We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Halloween!  Stay safe and enjoy the sugar high!

Ghost Stories

Halloween weekend is upon us!  Some good, old fashioned, scary story telling never ages.  I asked around friends and family for their favorite ghost stories from their childhood.  The nice thing about most of these stories, we have all heard them enough that we can put our own spin on it!  You can creep it up or creep it down.  Just remember, you reap what you sew with scary stories and kids.  You creep the story up, you will have a bunk mate for the evening.  Happy Halloween! 

La Llorona

  Once there was a beautiful woman named Xochitl.  She fell in love with a wealthy rancher.  They were married and had two children together.  One day Xochitl saw her husband kissing another woman.  In a fit of rage, she drowned her two children in the river by their house.  Realizing what she had done, Xochitl flung herself into the river drowning.  When Xochitl went up to heaven, they would not let her in until she finds her children.  So now she spends her days by the river, forever weeping and forever looking for her lost children.

Bloody Mary

There once was a little girl named Mary who lived in a cemetery with her family.  Her father was a gravedigger.  When he buried a body, he would always leave a string leading into the grave with a bell on the other end.  That way if anyone was buried alive, they could ring the bell and the gravedigger would be able to dig them up.

One day a terrible disease swept through the village.  It would cause people to fall into a deep sleep before dying.  They would check to see if the person was alive by placing a mirror under their nose.  If the mirror fogged up, then they were still alive.  Mary came home sick one day and fell into a deep sleep.  Her parents were devastated when they place the mirror under her nose and no breath fogged up the mirror.

They buried Mary behind their house in a grave with a string attached to a bell.  Shockingly, Mary wasn’t dead.  She awoke inside her coffin.  She pulled the string on the bell, but she pulled too hard and the string yanked the bell off its hook.  Days later her mother went to visit her grave, and saw the bell on the ground.  Realizing what happened they dug up Mary’s grave and found she died with a petrified look on her face and scratch marks on the ceiling of her coffin. 

To this day if you light a candle in your bathroom with the lights off and call Bloody Mary three times, Mary appears and scratches your eyes out!

Hook for a Hand

Once there was a teenage couple who went out on a date.  At the end of the night, they decided to go drive into the woods and gaze up at the stars.  As they are parked, they heard a radio story about an escaped inmate from the nearby insane asylum.  This inmate had previously killed several teenagers with his hook he had instead of a hand.  The girl got scared and decides she wants to go home.  The guy starts his car and pulls out of the woods when he hears a long scratching noise down the side of his car.  They continue home and when he gets out of his car to check the damage, he sees a hook stuck in the car door handle.

Babysitter ghost story

A young woman decided to take a babysitting job on Halloween night.  When she gets to the house the parents let her know the kids are already asleep.  She is welcome to watch TV until they get home.  The parents leave and the babysitter goes to check on the kids who are sound asleep in their beds. 

She comes downstairs and turns on the TV.  The house has a lot of odd collectibles all over the shelves.  The oddest being a statue next to the TV.  It appears to be a large gnome dressed in overalls and a small red hat.  Even though the gnome is just a statue, it makes her feel really uncomfortable.  She feels like it’s watching her.  She decides to take a blanket and place it over the gnome.  Then she plops on the couch and turns on a scary movie. 

After the movie is over, she gets a call from the parents checking in on their kids.  The babysitter goes upstairs, and the kids are still sounds asleep.  She tells the mom the kids are asleep and that everything is okay.  She asks if she can move the gnome statue because it is kind of creeping her out.  The mom pauses on the phone and says “we don’t have a gnome statue.”  The babysitter rushes down stairs to where the gnome statue was sitting next to the TV all night.  But all that is there is the white sheet on the floor.

I Forgot About That Part

One of the best things about Halloween is movies! We all have fond memories of watching classic Halloween films. It is natural to want to share these movies with our kids. Surely if we love these movies, they will love them too! Then you sit your kids down to watch a movie, and a scene comes up you forgot about. Maybe a joke you didn’t get as a kid, bad language you’d forgotten about, or a scene filled with nightmare fuel you repressed. Well I am here to help! Below is a short list of classic, family Halloween movies with some questionable humor. Humor that can lead to some interesting questions from your kids you may not be ready for! Now you can prepare yourself for those questions!

“What’s a Virgin?”

We are starting off strong with a Halloween classic, Hocus Pocus! The movie has a few sprinkles of adult humor. We all remember wondering what “yabbos” are, and the joke about the Sanderson sisters wanting to have children with the bus driver. But that main joke that permeates through the entire movie is about a teenager’s virginity. By the time you reach the end of the movie, it would be weird if you’re kids didn’t ask what a virgin is.

“Did Casper die?”

Casper is still a really fun movie to watch as a family. But it does offer a nice kick in the emotional gut when you learn Casper’s back story. Casper was a little boy who died. He then haunted his dad to the point of insanity. The littlest kids may miss this entire premise, buuuuuut it is pretty gut wrenching when you truly deal with the concept of ghosts.

“Are those yabbos?”

There are several amazing stop-motion animation films that are synonymous with Halloween. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Paranorman, Frankenweenie and Coraline all are about the same level of scary. All of these movies are a too scary for your littlest kids, but they are pretty age appropriate for upper elementary. BUT, while reassuring your kids the spooky images in these movies aren’t real, Coraline give you one (really two) more thing to speak to your children about.

“Uuuum, I have a lot of questions”

Beetlejuice is a hilarious movies. Michael Keaton is absolutely hysterical and I find something new to laugh at every time I see it. But to be honest, I don’t even understand how Beetlejuice is always on the list of “family friendly movies”. There are some funny visuals for kids. But between having to explain about suicide, to what a whore house is, leave this one on the shelf for the kids!

“Is she gonna marry that old man?”

Oh Labyrinth. How poorly this movie has aged. Not that the movie isn’t enjoyable. It certainly has great visuals and fun songs. It is a great choice for Halloween with its solid creep factor. But you can’t help but squirm as an adult, when 39 year old David Bowie keeps trying to seduce 16 year old Jennifer Connelly.

There are so many great Halloween movies to watch with kids! It can be tough to hold back on your favorite movies. We watched them when we were a kids, and we all turned out just fine. I mean, we were the people that made Fifty Shades a Grey a bestselling series. But those can’t possibly be related!