Celebrating Halloween on the North Coast? Here are some ideas for a safe, spooky holiday
Summer’s over, autumn’s in full swing, schools are in session, sort of — just ask any parent who’s having to deal with one or more distance-learning students.
That means Halloween is right around the corner, followed almost immediately by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
I’m so not ready for the holidays. At all. But I’m thinking some enterprising, energetic Cambrians have answers for safer Halloween fun on the North Coast while still providing some protection from the COVID-19 virus.
For us, Halloween’s been a nonentity for years, with no costumed little ones at home, few in the neighborhood and none of the others likely to visit our dark-at-night, hilly location with no sidewalks.
So, buying a big bag of candy is an exercise in dietary futility. Buy it in early October. Put it in a bowl. Eat it all by National Kick Butt Day, which in case you forgot, was Oct. 14.
The next day was more my speed these days: Oct. 15, National Grouch Day.
After all, most of us are shell-shocked by now — what with the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 election, financial woes and those relentless robocalls and spam texts!
We feel buffeted and battered by constant sniping, griping and finger pointing, as well as downright ugliness and meanness.
In the midst of all that, Halloween starts looking pretty good and rather benign, despite restrictions and concerns about the novel coronavirus.
Halloween angst
Even so, for weeks it seems, how to handle Halloween 2020 has been a topic of angst, discussion, debate and heated disagreement online.
Should we:
• Decorate for the holiday?
• Take the kids trick or treating?
• Go to Cambria’s “trunk-and-treat” event?
• Pick up a goody bag at the Welcome to the Circus family event at the Big Sur River Inn and Restaurant, 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 31?
• Dress up and hand out commercially packaged candies from a socially distanced tray on the porch?
• Ignore Halloween completely and go to bed early?
Yikes.
Of course, precautions would be necessary to keep the kiddos and everybody else as safe as possible, both from the pandemic and any evil grinches, like the ones who used to put razor blades in apples.
One online post pegged it: “The only thing scarier than Halloween is Halloween 2020.”
Cambria Trunk and Treat event
So, how’s a parent to deal with the Halloween tradition when the goblin is a deadly virus, the vampires are naysayers and the ghosts are their kids’ dreams of a happy time?
State and county officials recently issued firm advice about Halloween festivities: Don’t trick or treat and avoid big gatherings.
That’s not sitting well with some traditionalists.
Liz Bannon of Cambria has organized a socially distanced, tightly monitored Trunk-and-Treat event from 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 31 at the town’s Pinedorado grounds, where scarecrows from the October festival will set the stage.
There’ll also be a Halloween morning drive-through pancake breakfast at the Veterans Memorial Building, 1000 Main St. Admission is $5 a plate to help raise funds for a Cambria skatepark. Wear a costume for a chance to win a custom SKATE CAMBRIA skateboard. For details, to donate or for Skate Cambria merchandise, go to www.skatecambria.com.
Hello, Google!
Some of us are still on the fence about Halloween.
Here are some of the suggestions I found online for spooky fun:
• Construct a 6-foot-long PVC pipe chute to slide candy out to socially distanced trick-or-treaters. Or use a zipline or grabber arm-extension tool. Maybe disguise it to look like Capt. Hook’s hook.
• Watch ghost tours on TV.
• Sponsor and organize a Zoom pumpkin-carving contest, costume contest or even an in-home Halloween parade.
• Make caramel apples and popcorn and have a family Halloween movie night.
• Light a fire in the fireplace, turn off all the lights and tell ghost and vampire stories.
IOU trick or treat
My own idea? Make the internet your Halloween friend and do “IOU trick or treating.”
It’ll take some advance planning and coordinating, but that’s something all good Halloween plans have always required.
Dress up, decorate and party within your household or “bubble.” Have some candies and Halloween treasures on hand to set the stage and fill those “but I want it now” demands.
Then let the costumed kids go virtually to the homes of family and friends who have each set up a “buffet line” of candy varieties.
The youngsters pick out the candy they want, just as they would out of that ubiquitous bowl on the porch.
Then, the next day, you take the trick-or-treaters shopping for their “IOU Halloween candies” (which, for bonus points, are apt to be marked down in price by then).
Whatever you do, be safe, have a good time and make magical memories. The kids, and you, are only young once.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 10:38 AM.
