On our Halloween bucket list for 2022, we are sharing some of our family fun plans. We hope to give y’all a few ideas and maybe get some from you as well.

Places to Visit

This year is a bit different for us, as we will spend a lot of time with our oldest daughter, who is fostering two of our granddaughters. The little grand Grimms are Wednesday, who will be turning four on October 30th, and Agatha, who is only eighteen months. It has been a while since we had littles ourselves and trying to keep things age appropriate has been amazing, to say the least.

• Pumpkin patch and corn maze
• Visit a cemetery for a stroll
• Gathering fallen leaves
• Coffin Races in Manitou Springs, Colorado
• Trunk and Treat

There is a pumpkin patch in a small town that will be great for a visit. Smaller scale, and if the kiddos are up to it, we can try our hands at the corn maze too.

Visiting a cemetery for a stroll might not be typical for everyone but hear me out. There are bonuses with active littles. Wednesday loves to run, and Agatha is a relatively new walker, so they are at very different paces. Most cemeteries here in Colorado don’t have a lot of visitors, which means low traffic. Next, most also have paved pathways great for walking and strollers. Plus, since it is a hobby of mine, I want to share the love of respecting those who have passed before us. We get to mozy at our own pace, no lines, and good exercise.

Gathering fallen leaves is an activity I always looked forward to when my girls were littles. Give them each a small paper bag, show them they can put leaves into it, then set off on a nature walk.

With their ages, I am not expecting them to understand completely. Even just a couple before they lose focus is ok. Projects we can do would be the wax paper, and crayon melts for placemats or to hang in a window like stained glass. They can also glue them to a piece of paper or use the leaf shapes to make something else.

The Coffin races in Manitou Springs is an annual festival fun day. What I enjoy are the costumes and people watching, the races are amazing too. It is a small town that gets very crowded for this event.

Honestly, the costumes are my favorite part. I am sure the littles might enjoy the parade a bit, but I sincerely doubt they will want to stick around long after. Who knows, they might surprise us.

The trunk and treat should be entertaining. I don’t think either of them will care that we didn’t go through whole neighborhoods door to door. At their ages, they might see the long walks between as more of torture. This way, they get the fun with minimal wait times, and we adults get a bit more piece of mind that they won’t have to deal with traffic while they are overwhelmed and distracted.

Other Halloween Bucket List Projects

• Leaf placemats
• felt spookies
• shadow hand creatures
• learn a couple of Halloween songs
• color Halloween pictures
• make bat planes
• watch Halloween movies (we have a family streaming list coming)
• learn spooky noises/sounds (think of O MacDonald’s Farm)
• read Halloween themed stories together

Leaf placemats the toddler version. This means they get to pick a few leaves and some crayon colors. Toddlers go play while an adult arranges the items on a piece of paper, makes the crayon shavings to sprinkle around, then tops with another piece of wax paper that is sandwiched inside a towel and irons with a hot iron till all the shavings are melted. Let it cool, then give it to the toddler.

For the felt spooky, these don’t have to be truly scary. I would think something like an owl or bat would be fine but get creative, maybe a ghost or spider. Having fun is the point. With a one and three-year-old, I will cut the shapes out ahead of time and then just have them glue and place them where they want. The best part is there is no wrong way to do this!

Shadow hand creatures are great for helping littles not to be afraid of the dark. However, Wednesday is already pretty good at making basic shadow creatures. I have to up my game and learn some new ones for her. This is also a great activity to have older toddlers tell stories, or littles like Agatha like to imitate noises and watch the show.

Halloween songs, spooky sounds, and stories are on your preferences, of course. I wanted to have simple nursery rhymes like Little Miss Muffet for small muscle movements. And Monster Says to encourage large muscle movements (this is like Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. Toddlers love to sing and move. I suggest finding songs your family will enjoy.

The same goes for the stories. I am one of those exaggerated voice readers, and I know my kids liked to interact with stories. I am not kidding about the voice parts; my kids actually lectured a teacher about Green Eggs and Ham having two distinct characters when they went to school. That was not a fun phone call. Just saying. I looked for a few short stories on Pinterest or Google that I liked. I also bought a few books to add to their library. There will be a lot of Grrrrs and whoooos (ghost sounds). I am sure my daughter’s neighbors are going to be thrilled.

Movies this is a personal preference. My family is special (to me, at least). The grandkids have been watching Nightmare Before Christmas, Hotel Transylvania, and Halloween Town their whole lives. There aren’t many Halloween-themed family movies they haven’t seen. They are okay with it. My point is to try to have fun with it and make it a big deal, so they begin to understand family time is important and a good thing. I have given my kiddos choices since they were very little, and I do plan to continue this with the grandkids too. My philosophy is that kids’ opinions should be encouraged, and they need to know they are validated, and the family will listen.

Halloween Bucket List for Foods

• bake spooky cookies
• make a Halloween snack
• help make mummy dogs

We picked up a cheater box with all the fixings to make these cookies from Walmart. We also got a white chocolate mummy box. These are great on those nights when the little Grims want something, and the adults just didn’t think ahead.

I did attach the link for the recipe for these. If you would like, just click on the picture. Personally, I am just picking up some Pillsbury crescent rolls, slicing them into thin strips, and having the littles help wrap the hot dogs. Nothing too elaborate or time-consuming.

This picture should also have a link to the recipe. For me, it is more of an idea. I like crockpot cooking with active littles. We normally have active days together, and I can make most of it ahead of time and throw it in a freezer bag for my visits, then dump it in the daughter’s crock pot and forget about it till dinner time. Heck, by dinner time, I am usually pretty tuckered out, so big dinners aren’t going to happen. Chasing two toddlers all day will do that to a grandma.

I am a big fan of trying to find healthy alternatives for the kiddos. Not everything has to be sugar and spice. We are trying to build a healthy relationship with food for the littles. I like these types of posts and recipe books for inspiration when my creativity is running a little low. But I must tell you the witches’ brooms are a hit with these two. We are blessed that both the girls love all fruit and aren’t too picky with their vegetables either.

Adult Halloween Bucket List Items

• Visit a Prison Cemetery (like a ghost tour/ghost hunting) with a friend who knows the history
• watch scary movies (we have a streaming list, look for it on Facebook)
• listen to ghost stories in the dark
• Spend time with family

My personal bucket list is small, which is okay with me. I have a blast spending time with the grandkids. I do have a few traditions and things I want to continue for myself and Grim Papa. We are more simplistic than when we were younger.

If I am being honest, we still have our moments, the ghost hunting with a friend is a prime example. I know nothing officially about ghost hunting other than watching a few TV shows here and there. I love the dark history, though! Bonus if I get chills or if we see something but I greatly enjoy spending time with other adults too. I think myself and this other lady have been friends since third grade. That is pretty close to forty years y’all!

Papa thinks it is very amusing when a scary movie startles me. I think he laughs a little too hard at that! It is all good fun.

We enjoy relaxing and listening to podcasts, YouTube videos, or audiobooks in the evenings to wind down. And we are so bad we try to limit the ghost stories to October and Christmas, but who are we kidding? The spooky and weird is every day for us.

Thanks for Spending Time With us!

Some final thoughts: First, we’re so glad you stopped by. 

Whatever you choose to do this Halloween, have some fun! Remember to be flexible; the weather, just like other things in life, can change when you least expect it. Oh, and be safe y’all.

We want to hear from you! What are your Halloween bucket list ideas? Do you have any annual traditions that you follow? Did we leave anything off our lists you think we should try?

We hope to see you again soon!